RELIGION  AND 
POLITICS 


BY 
ALGERNON   SIDNEY   CRAPSEY 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  WHITTAKER 
2  and  3  Bible  House 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  nineteen  hundred  and  fire  by 

ALGERNON  SIDNEY  CRAPSEY 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.  C. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  PAP.T5.\RA 


Contents 

Preface 

I.     The  State  9 

II.     The  Attitude  of  Jesus  to  the  State  31 

III.  The  Democratic  Church  in  the  Imperial 

State  56 

IV.  Jesus'  Method  of  Government  78 
V.     The  Imperialized  Church                          100 

VI.     The  Subjection  of  the  Eastern  Church 

to  the  State  120 

VII.     The  Supremacy  of  the  Church  in  the 

West  142 

VIII.     The  Fall  of  the  Mediaeval  Church  170 

IX.     The  Rise  of  the  National  Churches         214 
X.     The  Relation  of  Church  and  State  in 

the  United  States  235 

XI.     The    Commercialized    Church    in   the 

Commercialized  State  256 

XII.     The  Present  State  of  the  Churches          276 

XIII.     The  American  Church-State  297 


Preface. 

The  sermon  lectures  which  are  submitted  to  the 
judgment  of  the  reading  public  in  the  following 
pages,  were  not  written  in  the  first  instance  with  any 
thought  of  their  ultimate  publication.  They  were 
prepared  by  the  author  and  delivered  by  him  in  the 
course  of  his  duty  as  preacher  to  the  congregation 
of  which  he  is  the  pastor.  Reports  of  the  lectures 
were  published  in  the  daily  press,  which  reports  at- 
tracted wide  attention,  and  gave  rise  to  much  discus- 
sion and  contention.  Because  of  this  it  seems  wise 
to  publish  the  discourses  in  full  in  order  that  the 
writer  may  be  judged  by  the  whole  body  of  his 
thought,  rather  than  by  any  selected  portion  of  the 
same. 

It  was  the  intention  of  the  speaker  that  these  utter- 
ances should  serve  the  double  purpose  of  the  lecture 

and  the  sermon:  as  lectures  it  was  their  main  ob- 
ject to  impart  historical  information,  as  sermons  they 
were  intended  to  rouse  spiritual  emotions  and  to  in- 
spire moral  action.  The  writer  is  aware  that  he  has 
not  altogether  escaped  the  dangers  which  follow  upon 
the  effort  thus  to  combine  the  work  of  the  lecturer 
and  the  preacher.  He  has,  he  fears,  unwittingly, 
brought  into  the  region  of  heated  theological  con- 
troversy, matters  that  belong  rather  to  the  clear,  calm, 

CO 


2  PREFACE. 

dispassionate  department  of  historical  investigation. 
His  only  excuse  is  that  religion  and  history  are  so 
closely  associated  that  it  is  impossible  to  treat  of  the 
one  without  reference  to  the  other.  Especially  is 
this  the  case  when  one  attempts  to  consider  the  rela- 
tion of  the  religious  to  the  political  life  of  man.  This 
subject  must  be  considered  historically  or  not  at  all. 

In  view  of  the  discussion  which  has  been  occa- 
sioned by  the  publication  of  the  I2th  lecture  in  this 
course  on  the  Present  State  of  the  Churches,  it  seems 
wise  for  the  writer  to  devote  a  few  prefatory  pages 
to  a  simple  explanation  of  the  historical  method  as  it 
is  used  by  modern  schpja£sjn_th^jnvestigation  of 
historical  phenomena  in  general  and  of  thej)henom- 
ena  of  religious  history  in  particular. 

Historic  criticism,  as  a  science,  has  for  its  purpose 
the  discovery  and  establishment  of  historic  truth. 
Any  one  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  human  affairs 
is  well  aware  of  the  fact  that  one  cannot  believe  all 
that  one  hears.  Stories  are  told  of  what  men  have 
said  and  men  have  done,  stories  which,  while  they 
may  have  some  basis  in  truth  are  yet  so  turned  and 
twisted,  so  colored  and  informed  by  the  hopes  and 
fears,  the  prejudices  and  passions,  the  inaccuracies 
and  exaggerations  of  the  story  tellers,  that  it  is  only 
by  a  rigid  process  of  examination  and  cross  exam- 
ination that  we  are  able  to  arrive  at  anything  like  a 
truthful  account  of  what  actually  occurred.  Every 
one  admits  that  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  the  world, 


PREFACE.  3 

one  must  exercise  the  utmost  caution  if  one  would 
not  be  lead  into  error.  If  a  man  runs  after  every 
rumor  and  listens  to  every  tale,  he  is  sure  to  come  to 
grief.  A  prudent  man  will  not  act  upon  any  in- 
formation until  he  has  tested  that  information  by  a 
rigid  method  of  investigation  which  will  give  him 
reasonable  assurance  that  what  he  has  heard  is  true. 
Every  prudent  man  is,  therefore,  an  historical  critic. 
He  is  applying  to  current  history  the  same  method 
which  the  student  uses  in  his  study  of  the  history  of 
the  past. 

The  law  courts  are  engaged  daily  in  this  process 
of  historical  criticism.  They  seek  to  arrive  at  the 
truth  by  a  rigid  system  of  examination.  These 
courts  have  by  long  experience  evolved  rules  of  evi- 
dence which  guide  them  in  their  administration  of 
justice.  To  be  a  perfectly  competent  witness  a  man 
must  have  knowledge  at  first  hand  of  the  fact  to 
which  he  testifies.  If  he  has  not  himself  seen  or 
heard  he  is  not  competent  to  tell.  Not  only  must  he 
have  this  first  hand  knowledge  but  he  must  also  be, 
as  far  as  possible,  without  prejudice  or  partiality; 
the  character  of  a  witness,  his  ability,  his  fairness,  his 
moral  integrity  and  his  intellectual  capacity  must  all 
be  considered  in  weighing  his  testimony.  Moreover, 
a  witness,  in  certain  circumstances,  to  be  of  value, 
must  not  only  have  a  knowledge  of  the  particular 
fact  to  which  he  testifies,  but  also  of  the  relation  of 
that  fact  to  the  general  order  of  the  world.  An 


4  PREFACE. 

ordinary  person  may  be  competent  to  testify  that  a 
man  was  wounded  in  a  given  part  of  the  body  and 
yet  not  be  competent  to  say  that  the  wound  in  ques- 
tion was  necessarily  fatal  and  the  cause  of  the  man's 
death.  Before  he  is  competent  to  give  such  evidence 
he  must  know  somewhat  of  human  anatomy  and 
physiology,  and  of  the  effect  of  such  wounds  upon 
the  life  of  man.  He  must  not  only  be  an  eye  witness, 
he  must  also  be  an  intellectual  expert. 

Not  only  does  historic  criticism  take  into  account 
the  character  and  opportunity  of  the  witness,  but  it 
also  considers  the  nature  of  the  alleged  event.  An 
assertion  which  falls  in  with  the  ordinary  daily  ex- 
perience of  mankind  can  be  established  by  evidence 
much  less  cogent  than  is  required  to  sustain  a  state- 
ment which  contradicts  such  experience.  We  can 
believe  readily  the  word  of  almost  anyone  who  tells 
us  that  a  certain  man  walked  upright  upon  the  land; 
we  would  examine  much  more  searchingly  the  same 
witness  should  he  assert  that  a  certain  man  walked 
upright  on  the  water.  In  the  one  case  the  wit- 
ness is  corroborated  by  universal  experience;  in  the 
other  case  universal  experience  is  against  him,  and 
of  all  witnesses,  universal  experience  is  the  most 
convincing.  What  we  call  natural  law  is  simply  an 
accurate  statement  of  this  universal  experience. 
From  the  earliest  times  men  have  observed  that 
heavy  bodies  when  thrown  into  the  air  fall  again  to 
the  earth.  An  accurate  measurement  of  the  velocity 


PREFACE.  5 

of  the  fail  of  such  bodies  gives  us  the  Newtonian  law 
of  gravitation.  We  can  test  that  law  at  all  times 
and  it  never  fails  us.  When  once  this  law  has  be- 
come a  part  of  our  mental  endowment,  we  can  readily 
receive  all  that  is  in  accord  with  it,  while  any  viola- 
tion of  it  appears  to  us  impossible.  All  the  wonders 
of  astronomical  science,  beside  which  all  the  recorded 
miracles  of  the  world  are  but  as  child's  play,  seem  to 
us  credible  because  they  conform  to  this  universal 
experience. 

If  we  are  told  of  a  certain  being  in  human  form, 
born  of  a  human  mother,  expressing  consciousness  in 
human  speech,  living  a  human  life  and  dying  a  hu- 
man death,  we  naturally  predicate  of  such  an  one  a 
human  fatherhood  as  well  as  a  human  motherhood, 
for  universal  experience  bears  witness  to  the  fact  that 
everyone  who  is  the  child  of  a  human  mother  is  also 
the  child  of  a  human  father.  To  overcome  this 
presupposition  which  is  established  by  universal  ex- 
perience would  require  testimony  of  overwhelm- 
ing force.  The  burden  of  proof  lies  with  those 
who  deny,  not  with  those  who  assert  the  valid- 
ity of  universal  experience  to  establish  a  given  fact. 

Historic  criticism  simply  applies  these  principles  to 
the  examination  of  historic  documents.  It  is  a  well 
known  fact  that  in  the  beginning  the  mind  of  man 
was  not  trained  to  accurate  observation  and  accurate 
statement.  Nor  was  he  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
the  course  of  Nature  to  be  able  to  interpret  rightly 


6  PREFACE. 

natural  events.  His  history  was  not  the  result  of 
careful  research,  of  painful  composition  and  toil- 
some correction ;  but  it  was  a  tale  told  by  the  fireside 
and  passed  from  lip  to  lip — growing  and  changing 
with  every  repetition.  Primitive  man  was  moreover 
unable  to  distinguish  between  the  creations  of  his  own 
imagination  and  the  facts  of  the  external  universe. 
His  dream  by  night  was  as  real  to  him  as  his  sight 
by  day.  He  projected  himself  into  the  universe  and 
made  the  world  in  his  own  image.  The  sun  and  the 
moon  and  the  stars,  the  winds  and  the  waves,  the 
trees  and  the  running  waters,  were  conceived  by  him 
to  be  living  creatures  like  himself,  capable  of  joy  and 
sorrow,  inspired  by  hopes  and  fears,  indulging  loves 
and  hatreds.  The  earliest  literature  of  the  world  is 
the  expression  of  the  facts  of  the  universe  in  general 
and  of  human  life  in  particular  in  the  terms  of  the 
undisciplined  human  imagination.  This  literature 
is  sublime  poetry,  but  it  is  not  accurate  history.  The 
historical  critic  classes  stories  of  this  kind  under  the 
name  of  mythology.  In  the  next  period  of  human 
thinking  man  recognizes  more  clearly  his  distinct 
place  in  nature,  but  he  cannot  yet  measure  his  own 
powers,  nor  be  fully  conscious  of  his  own  limitations. 
He  is  ready  to  ascribe  to  his  fathers,  to  ancient  kings 
and  heroes  mastery  over  nature  which  later  exper- 
ience will  not  allow.  The  stories  which  make  up  his 
history  have  only  a  general  relation  to  the  facts  as 
they  occurred.  His  fathers  and  his  heroes  are  the 


PREFACE.  7 

personification  of  race  feeling  such  as  race  pride,  race 
fear  and  race  hope.  Stories  of  this  class,  which  have 
some  basis  in  fact,  are  grouped  by  the  historic  critic 
under  the  name  of  legend.  After  legend  comes 
sober  history — when  trees  are  trees  and  men  are 
men  and  facts  are  facts. 

It  has  been  the  sole  work  of  the  historical  critic  to 
thus  arrange  and  classify  historical  statements.  The 
Christian  critic  has  not  hesitated  to  apply  this 
method  to  all  history  except  the  history  of  his  own 
religion.  And  is  he  not  in  honor  bound  to  use  the 
same  measure  for  himself  which  he  metes  out  to 
others  ?  And  this  is  all  that  the  present  writer  con- 
tends for  in  the  I2th  lecture  of  this  series.  He 
claims  the  right  to  investigate  Jthe  facts  of  his  own 
religion  by  the  same  method  which  he  has  been 
taught  to  use  in  the  investigation  of  the  facts  of  all 
other  religions.  He  would  be  ashamed  to  claim  for 
his  own  great  religion  what  he  is  not  ready  to  allow 
to  the  poorest  religion  of  the  world.  If  the  literature 
and  formularies  of  his  religion  contain  historical 
statements,  then  those  statements  must  be  subjected 
to  the  process  of  historical  criticism,  and  if  we  find 
there  the  elements  of  myth  and  legend  let  us  not  be 
afraid  to  confess  that  our  religion  like  all  religions 
has  had  its  infancy  and  its  youth,  as  well  as  its  years 
of  sober  manhood.  And  the  writer  of  these  lectures 
further  asserts  that  whether  we,  the  Christian  min- 
isters, like  it  or  not,  the  historical  content  of  the 


8  PREFACE. 

Hebrew  and  Christian  religion  has  been  and  will  be 
subjected  to  the  correcting  process  of  historical  crit- 
icism and  is  it  not  better  that  we,  ourselves,  should  do 
this  necessary  work  rather  than  be  forced  to  receive 
its  results  at  the  hand  of  strangers  ? 

The  true  believer  has  nothing  to  fear  from  historic 
criticism.  His  faith  does  not  rest  in  any  given  in- 
terpretation of  history ;  for  him  God  is  God,  man  is 
man,  Jesus  is  Jesus,  the  Spirit  of  Holiness  is  the 
Spirit  of  Holiness  in  the  eternal  now,  no  matter  what 
may  have  happened  in  the  past. 

NOTE. — Before  going  to  press  the  author  desires  to  qualify 
a  statement  made  in  lecture  12,  concerning  Theological 
Seminaries.  It  is  there  asserted  that  these  Seminaries  are 
the  only  institutions  of  learning  which  do  not  employ  the 
scientific  method  in  the  investigation  and  establishment  of 
truth.  This  is  true  of  Theological  Seminaries  in  general, 
but  there  are  notable  exceptions.  The  Union  Theological 
Seminary  in  New  York,  Harvard  Divinity  School,  Yale 
Divinity  School,  the  Divinity  School  of  Chicago  University, 
the  Episcopal  Divinity  School  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  are  all 
schools  of  scientific  as  opposed  to  scholastic  theology  and 
are  doing  work  of  a  very  high  order. 


The  State. 

The  Convention  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  lately  assembled  in  the  city  of  Boston,  had 
as  its  guest  of  honor  no  less  a  personage  than  His 
Grace,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  For  the  first 
time  in  history  the  primate  of  all  England,  the 
highest  dignitary  of  the  established  church,  has  left 
his  own  jurisdiction,  and  has  come  out  to  visit  the 
churches  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  This  visit  is  noteworthy, 
not  only  because  of  the  gracious  personality  of  him 
who  made  it,  but  more  because  of  the  political  and 
religious  significance  of  the  event. 

We  hear  from  all  who  came  in  contact  with  His 
Grace  of  Canterbury  of  his  simplicity  of  character, 
his  personal  piety,  his  gentleness  and  courtesy.  He 
is  without  doubt  a  good  man  and  an  exemplary 
clergyman.  But  it  was  not  as  a  good  man,  nor  as 
an  exemplary  clergyman,  that  he  was  carried  about 
in  private  palace  cars,  received  the  worship  of  the 


bl 


io  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

churches  and  the  adulation  of  the  multitude.  It  was 
not  Mr.  Randall  Davidson  who  had  the  chief  seats 
in  the  solemn  assembly ;  who  was  the  guest  of  honor 
in  the  house  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
and  sat  at  the  right  hand  of  the  merchant  princes 
of  our  land.  All  these  honors  were  accorded,  not 
to  the  man,  but  to  the  official.  This  man  occupies 
for  the  time  being  one  of  the  highest  dignities  in  the 
world.  He  is  the  natural  companion  of  emperors, 
kings,  and  presidents ;  he  is  titular  chief  of  the  estab- 
lished church  of  England ;  he  has  his  palace  at  Can- 
terbury and  his  palace  in  London;  his  official  in- 
come is  greater  than  that  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  This  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  is 
not  only  an  officer  in  the  church  of  Christ;  he  is 
also  an  official  in  the  Kingdom  of  Edward  VII.  He 
not  only  presides  in  the  councils  of  the  church,  but 
as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Lords;  he  has  his 
voice  and  vote  in  affairs  of  state.  This,  his  official 
status,  makes  his  recent  presence  in  our  midst  a 
historical  object  lesson,  bringing  to  our  attention 
in  a  picturesque  way  the  fact  that  there  are  in 
Christendom  two  institutions,  the  church  and  the 
state,  which  from  the  beginning  of  Christian  history 
have  borne  a  varying  relation  to  each  other.  It  is 


THE  STATE.  n 

to  this  constantly  varying  relation  of  the  church 
to  the  state  that  I  now  invite  your  attention,  not  as 
a  matter  for  mere  academic  discussion,  but  as  of  vi- 
tal interest  to  our  social,  our  political,  and  our  re- 
ligious life. 

That  institution  which  we  call  the  church  came 
into  existence  about  1900  years  ago,  and  had  its 
beginning  in  a  province  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
church  took  its  rise  just  at  that  period  when  the 
imperial  system  had  firmly  established  its  sway  over 
the  Roman  world.  The  Christian  church  and  the 
Roman  Empire  are  so  bound  together  in  their  ori- 
gin and  history  that  it  is  impossible  to  understand 
the  one  without  some  knowledge  of  the  other.  We 
must,  then,  take  a  hasty  glance  at  the  history  and 
constitution  of  the  Empire  before  we  can  study  with 
intelligence  the  history  and  constitution  of  the 
church. 

The  Roman  Empire  as  it  existed  in  the  first  cen- 
tury of  the  Christian  era  had  succeeded  to  the  pow- 
ers and  inherited  the  conquests  of  the  Roman  Re- 
public. The  Empire  had,  indeed,  built  itself  up  out 
of  the  ruins  of  the  Republic.  The  rise  of  the  city  of 
Rome  from  republican  simplicity  to  imperial  great- 
ness is  the  central  fact  in  the  history  of  Europe,  if 


12  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

not  of  the  world.  On  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  in 
the  country  called  Italy,  about  14  miles  from  the 
sea,  are  a  number  of  low-lying  hills;  two  of  these 
hills,  separated  from  one  another  by  a  narrow  ra- 
vine, form  the  site  of  the  original  city  of  Rome. 
The  beginnings  of  the  city  are  wrapt  in  myth  and 
legend.  Tradition  tells  us  that  it  was  founded  by 
the  union  of  three  or  more  separate  tribes  under  the 
leadership  of  Romulus  and  Remus.  These  mythical 
heroes  were  of  divine  origin,  and  acted  under  di- 
vine guidance  in  selecting  the  site  and  laying  the 
foundations  of  their  city.  From  the  very  first  the 
Roman  people  were  remarkable  for  their  piety,  and 
religion  was  a  function  of  the  state.  It  is  to  this 
fact  that  Cicero  ascribes  the  rise  of  Rome  to  world- 
wide dominion.  "Let  us,"  said  this  great  Roman; 
"let  us  be  as  partial  to  ourselves  as  we  will,  Con- 
script Fathers,  yet  we  have  not  surpassed  the  Span- 
iards in  number,  nor  the  Gauls  in  strength,  nor  the 
Carthaginians  in  cunning,  nor  the  Greeks  in  the 
arts,  nor,  lastly,  the  Latins  and  Italians  of  this  na- 
tion and  land  in  natural  intelligence  and  home  mat- 
ters; but  we  have  excelled  all  nations  in  piety  and 
religion,  and  in  this  our  wisdom  of  fully  recogniz- 


THE  STATE.  13 

ing  that  all  things  are  ordered  and  governed  by 
the  power  of  the  immortal  gods."*  The  domestic 
and  the  public  life  of  the  Roman  had  each  its  pre- 
siding deity,  and  he  ruled  all  his  actions  with  a  view 
to  pleasing  his  gods. 

It  has  been  suggested  by  Goldwin  Smith  in  an 
able  essay  on  The  Greatness  of  Rome  that  the  city 
owed  its  military  dominance  to  the  fact,  not  that 
it  was  more  warlike,  but,  on  the  contrary  that  it 
was  less  warlike,  than  the  surrounding  peoples. 
The  conquests  of  Rome  were  due,  not  so  much  to 
the  brute  force  of  the  warrior,  as  they  were  to  the 
discipline  of  the  soldier  and  to  the  sagacity  of  the 
general.  It  was,  says  Goldwin  Smith,  "the  first 
triumph  of  intellect  over  muscle."f  The  fighter 
under  the  Roman  rule  was  not  a  savage  rushing  at 
his  foe  with  savage  rage,  and  running  away  with 
savage  fear.  He  was  the  member  of  a  highly  trained 
company  advancing  and  retreating  at  the  word  of 
command.  Discipline  was  the  life,  and  obedience 
the  watchword,  of  the  Roman  soldier.  To  be  slack 
in  discipline  was  a  crime;  to  disobey  a  command, 


*Cicero,  De  Har.  Resp.  9.    Quoted  by  Bacon  in  Essay  on 
Atheism,  p.  167.     Lee  and  Shepard,  Boston,  1868. 
tThe  Greatness  of  the  Romans    Essay  Goldwin  Smith. 


14  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

or  to  act  without  orders,  was  to  incur  the  penalty 
of  death.  Both  in  military  and  in  civil  life  the  Ro- 
man was  the  first  to  develop  fully  the  idea  of  law. 
The  great  word  which  he  has  contributed  to  the 
language  of  man  is  the  word  lex,  or  law.  In  the 
Roman  system  the  will  of  the  city  was  the  rule  of 
life. 

The  original  government  of  Rome  was  monarchi- 
cal. But  even  in  the  days  of  the  Kings  the  mon- 
arch was  not  absolute.  He  was  assisted  in  the  gov- 
ernment by  a  Senate  or  Council  of  Elders,  and  by 
an  Assembly  of  the  People.  It  would  seem  that 
the  office  of  King  was  not  hereditary,  but  was  sub- 
ject to  election  by  the  people  and  confirmation  by 
the  Senate.  When  the  Kings  dared  to  violate  the 
laws  and  outrage  the  feelings  of  the  people  they 
were  expelled  from  the  city,  and  Rome  became  a 
Republic.  We  have  the  whole  genius  of  Rome  ex- 
pressed in  this  word  "Republic."  It  is  res  publica — 
a  public  thing.  The  life  of  the  city  and  the  life  of 
every  citizen  in  the  city  was  a  public  thing;  and  it 
was  the  merging  of  the  life  of  the  citizen  in  the  life 
of  the  city  that  created  that  public  thing, — that  res 


THE  STATE.  15 

publica  which  became  at  last  the  wonder  of  the 
world.  In  Rome  the  citizen  existed  for  the  sake 
of  the  city;  not  the  city  for  the  citizen.  It  was  a 
corporation,  a  body  politic,  a  real  thing  that  lived 
and  wrought  on  the  hills  by  the  Tiber.  We  owe  to 
Rome  our  conception  of  the  state  as  an  entity,  our 
reverence  for  law  as  a  rule  of  life,  our  belief  in  the 
people  as  the  source  of  power.  The  very  word 
"people"  is  of  Roman  origin.  After  the  expulsion 
of  the  Kings,  the  Romans  were  jealous,  above  all 
things,  of  the  executive  power.  Instead  of  Kings 
ruling  for  life,  they  had  Consuls  elected  every  year. 
I  cannot  in  this  lecture  discuss  the  details  of  the 
Roman  Constitution.  It  was  the  growth  of  cen- 
turies, and  its  history  forms  one  of  the  great  depart- 
ments of  human  knowledge.  The  seat  of  power  was 
in  the  Senate  and  in  the  Assemblies  of  the  People. 
During  the  early  period  of  republican  history  the 
city  was  disturbed  by  the  conflict  between  the  peo- 
ple at  large  and  the  old  families,  called  the  patri- 
cians. The  patricians  were  the  privileged  class. 
They  owned  the  land,  for  the  most  pari,  on  which 
the  city  was  built ;  they  alone  were  eligible  to  mem- 
bership in  the  Senate ;  they  alone  could  hold  the  of- 


16  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

fice  of  Consul.  Little  by  little  the  people  pressed 
forward,  gaining  for  themselves  a  constantly  in- 
creasing share  in  the  government  of  the  city.  In 
the  Tribune  they  created  an  officer  who  could  veto 
the  acts  of  the  Senate,  and  arrest  the  person  c\f  the 
Consul.  It  was  this  conflict  between  the  patrician 
order  and  the  people  at  large  that  brought  about 
at  last  the  fall  of  the  Republic. 

While  developing  her  Constitution  within  her 
walls,  Rome  was  extending  her  boundaries  without. 
War,  at  first  a  necessity,  became  a  pleasure  and  a 
pastime.  The  soldier  at  first  a  citizen,  laying  aside 
his  sword  for  the  plough  when  the  campaign  was 
over,  became  at  last  a  professional  who  spent  his 
whole  life  in  the  military  service  of  the  Republic; 
and  it  was  this  professional  soldier  who  in  time 
subdued  both  patrician  and  plebian  to  his  will,  and 
founded  the  Empire. 

Absorbing  first  the  kindred  tribes  of  the  Sabines 
and  the  Latins,  the  Romans  pressed  northward  be- 
yond the  Arno  and  the  Po,  subdued  the  region  of 
Cis-Alpine  Gaul,  and  extended  her  borders  to  the 
foot  hills  of  the  Alps.  By  the  middle  of  the  third 


THE  STATE.  17 

century  before  the  Christian  era  all  Italy  was  sub- 
missive to  the  authority  of  the  city  of  Rome.  The 
wars  with  Carthage,  a  rival  city  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  threatening  for  a  time  the  very  existence 
of  the  Roman  state,  ended  at  last  in  giving  Rome 
possession  of  Spain,  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Corsica, 
and  the  lordship  of  Africa.  From  this  time  until 
the  fall  of  the  Republic,  the  Romans  engaged  in  the 
business  of  conquering  the  world,  and  were  emi- 
nently successful  in  their  enterprise.  They  subdued 
Greece,  Syria,  and  Egypt.  In  seven  years  Caesar 
so  Romanized  and  Latinized  the  country  we  now 
call  France  that  to  this  day  we  call  France  a  Latin 
country,  and  speak  of  the  French  as  a  Latin  peo- 
ple. The  instrument  by  which  Roman  success  was 
achieved  was  the  army.  The  Roman  legions  were 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  work  in  which  they  were 
engaged.  Discipline  was  their  life,  the  camp  was 
their  home.  Their  general  was  their  god  and  their 
father.  The  Roman  legionary  had  no  attachment 
to  the  city  of  Rome,  no  reverence  for  her  institu- 
tions. The  city  he,  perhaps,  had  never  seen;  of 
her  history  and  Constitution  he  was  profoundly  ig- 
norant. The  gods  of  the  city  were  not  the  gods  of 


i8  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  camp.  It  is  hard  for  us  in  these  days  to  under- 
stand how  completely  the  gods  were  localized  in  the 
ancient  world.  Each  city  had  its  own  gods;  each 
tribe  its  own  deities.  But  in  the  Roman  camp 
were  men  from  all  the  cities  and  all  the  tribes  of 
the  Roman  world,  and  each  had  left  his  gods  behind 
him  as  he  had  left  his  father  and  his  mother.  It 
was  this  bringing  together  of  the  men  of  all  na- 
tions under  the  rule  of  Rome  that  brought  about 
the  downfall  of  the  ancient  religions.  Men  found 
that  the  gods  of  their  city  were  not  able  to  defend 
them,  and  so  they  lost  faith  in  them.  The  belief 
that  the  power  of  the  gods  was  local  was  fatal  to 
the  belief  in  those  gods  when  a  man  was  removed 
from  his  own  country.  The  god  of  Syria  could  do 
nothing  for  the  Syrian  as  he  wandered  forlorn 
through  the  sands  of  Africa.  So  the  Roman  legion- 
ary, who  spent  his  life  in  the  camp,  had  lost  his 
residence  in  the  city,  his  attachment  to  her  insti- 
tutions, and  his  belief  in  her  gods.  But,  as  religion 
is  a  necessity  of  the  heart  of  man,  he  soon  sub- 
stituted a  new  faith  for  the  old.  He  soon  came  to 
have  a  reverence,  a  love,  and  a  wholesome  fear  for 
the  Imperium  of  Rome.  Whoever  came  to  his  camp 


THE  STATE.  19 

bearing  the  commission  of  the  city  to  command  came 
with  the  power  of  life  and  death.  The  legionary 
saw  in  his  commander  the  incarnation  of  the  majes- 
ty of  Rome ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  the  Roman  legion- 
ary found  in  that  commander  his  father  and  his 
god.  To  that  father  and  god  he  yielded  perfect 
obedience;  to  him  he  looked  for  guidance;  from 
him  he  received  food  and  clothing;  from  him  he 
begged  the  donative  that  gave  a  little  pleasure  to 
his  hard  camp  life,  and  from  his  hands  he  expected 
the  bit  of  land  in  Italy  or  the  provinces  upon  which 
at  last  he  might  live  in  quiet  and  die  in  peace. 

In  this  way  grew  up  that  religion,  so  strange  to 
our  way  of  thinking,  which  was  the  worship  of  the 
Imperium  of  Rome ;  which  at  last  came  to  ascribe  to 
the  Roman  Emperor,  the  commander  of  the  Roman 
armies,  as  the  incarnation  of  Roman  power,  divine 
attributes  during  his  life,  and  raised  him  to  the  rank 
of  an  immortal  god  after  his  death.  This  was  the 
religion,  and  the  only  real  religion,  with  which 
Christianity  had  to  compete  in  the  first  centuries  of 
its  existence. 

While  the  Roman  Republic  was  strengthening  it- 
self in  the  outlying  regions  of  the  world,  it  was  with 


20  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

still  greater  rapidity  losing  vitality  in  the  very  cen- 
ter of  its  life  in  the  city  of  Rome.  The  century 
which  saw  the  provinces  of  Greece  and  Asia,  Sy- 
ria, and  Egypt  come  under  the  Roman  dominion 
was  also  the  century  which  saw  the  decay  of 
republican  virtue,  and  the  failure  of  republican  gov- 
ernment, on  the  hills  by  the  Tiber.  Rome  in  the 
days  of  her  republican  simplicity  was  as  remarkable 
for  her  domestic  virtues  as  she  was  for  her  piety 
toward  the  gods  and  her  devotion  to  the  public 
good.  The  stories  of  Lucretia  and  Virginia  tell  of 
the  high  esteem  in  which  the  Roman  held  the  chas- 
tity of  his  women.  The  histories  of  Regulus  and 
Cincinnatus  speak  of  the  Roman  as  always  ready 
to  subject  his  life  and  his  fortune  to  the  interests 
of  the  city;  and  we  have  already  heard  from  the 
lips  of  Cicero  of  his  piety  toward  the  gods.  Now 
in  the  second  century  before  Christ  all  of  these  vir- 
tues began  rapidly  to  decay,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  period  had  utterly  perished.  Of 
Rome  it  could  have  been  said  at  that  time  what 
Isaiah  said  of  Jerusalem  in  his  day :  "The  city  was 
full  of  wounds  and  bruises  and  putrifying  sores. 
From  the  crown  of  the  head  to  the  sole  of  the  foot 


THE  STATE.  21 

there  was  no  soundness  in  it."*  The  chastity  of 
Roman  women  became  like  the  snakes  in  Ireland — 
non-existent.  Men  changed  their  wives,  and  women 
their  husbands,  as  readily  as  they  changed  their 
garments.  Adultery  was  a  venial  sin,  and  fornica- 
tion a  very  virtue.  For  two  centuries  the  only  Ro- 
man women  who  attained  to  celebrity  gained  a  bad 
pre-eminence  by  the  excess  of  their  vices.  Instead 
of  Lucretia  and  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  we  have 
Julia  Augusta,  Messallina,  and  Agrippina  Minor. 
With  the  corruption  of  female  virtue  came  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  family.  Rome  would  have  become 
depopulated  if  it  had  depended  on  the  natural  in- 
crease of  its  own  stock.  It  was  only  saved  from 
that  fate  by  the  influx  of  strangers  from  all  parts 
of  the  world. 

But  the  loss  of  civic  virtue  was  more  frightful 
than  the  decay  of  domestic  purity.  No  American 
politician  of  the  baser  sort  ever  surpassed  the 
Roman  in  making  public  office  a  private  graft.  The 
stealings  of  Tweed  himself  become  petty  larceny 
when  we  compare  them  with  the  robberies  of  a  Lu- 
cullus,  a  Crassus,  or  a  Caesar.  The  Roman  Pro- 
consuls did  not  do  their  work  in  secret.  They 


*Isaiah,  chap.  iv. 


22  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

robbed  the  world  in  the  open  day,  by  force,  and  not 
by  cunning.  The  rich  cities  of  the  East  became 
their  prey,  and  there  was  no  end  to  their  spoil.  In 
thus  appropriating  to  themselves  the  riches  of  the 
barbarian,  they  were  conscious  of  no  wrong.  Their 
cry  was,  "Woe  to  the  conquered !"  and  long  before 
Marcy  they  had  formulated  the  doctrine  that  to  the 
victor  belong  the  spoils.  Having  in  their  power  the 
wealth  of  the  nations,  they  might  well,  like  Give  as 
he  stood  in  the  treasure  house  of  Delhi  and  took 
only  so  many  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  that  im- 
mense treasure,  marvel  at  their  own  moderation. 
When  Caesar  went  as  quaestor  to  Spain  he  had  to 
borrow  a  vast  sum  from  Crassus  to  pay  his  debts; 
at  the  end  of  his  quaestorship  he  had  repaid  this 
loan,  and  had  at  his  disposal  millions  of  money,  and 
yet  Caesar  was  probably  the  most  virtuous  and 
moderate  of  all  the  great  Romans  of  his  day. 

The  venality  of  the  Senate  was  as  rapacious  as 
the  rapacity  of  the  generals.  In  the  second  and  first 
centuries  before  Christ  political  power  centered  in 
the  Roman  Senate,  and  in  the  Senate  everything 
was  for  sale.  Jugurtha,  the  usurping  King  of 
Numidia,  bought  'the  Roman  Senate  as  cynically  as 


THE  STATE.  23 

Jay  Gould  bought  the  legislature  of  New  York,  or 
the  great  corporations  the  legislature  of  New  Jer- 
sey. The  Senate  was  the  fountain  of  justice,  and 
there  justice  was  poisoned  at  its  wellspring.  The 
crimes  of  spoliation  and  murder  went  scot-free 
upon  a  money  payment.  Rome  had,  indeed,  be- 
come a  harlot  whose  every  virtue  had  its  price.  The 
populace  of  Rome  shared  in  the  general  decadence. 
Free  bread  and  the  circus  had  utterly  corrupted 
the  masses.  The  votes  in  the  comitia  were 
bought  more  openly  than  the  votes  in  the  Senate. 
The  populace  avenged  the  murder  of  Caesar,  not 
so  much  because  he  was  a  great  Roman,  as  be- 
cause he  left  them  each  a  sum  of  money  in  his  will. 
But  a  still  greater  disaster  than  the  decay  of  do- 
mestic purity,  or  the  corruption  of  civic  virtue  fell 
on  the  city ;  this  last  overwhelming  calamity  was  the 
loss  of  religious  faith.  The  Roman  in  the  first  and 
second  centuries  before  the  Christian  era  had  out- 
grown the  simple  belief  of  his  fathers.  The  Augurs 
smiled  at  each  other  as  they  looked  at  the  entrails 
of  animals,  or  watched  the  flight  of  birds ;  the  poets 
turned  the  history  of  Jupiter  into  an  obscene  drama. 
A  crowd  of  strange  gods  and  goddesses  from  the 
East  came  crowding  into  Rome,  and  thrust  aside 


24  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  ancient  deities.  Osiris  and  Isis  from  the  Nile, 
Astarte  and  Heliogabalus  from  the  Syrian  desert, 
were  far  more  popular  than  poor  old  Jove,  or  rustic 
Ceres,  or  plain  Minerva.  This  vast  seething  mass 
of  religious  decay  and  corruption  stifled  the  con- 
science of  Rome  and  left  her  a  prey  to  the  violence 
of  her  own  passions.*  Then  followed  the  orgies  of 
the  later  Republic  and  early  Empire;  when  human 
nature,  turning  upon  itself,  put  out  the  light  of 
shame,  and  gave  itself  over  to  a  sensuality  that  was 
neither  brutal  nor  fiendish,  but  a  sensuality  of 
which  neither  brute  nor  fiend,  but  man  alone,  is  ca- 
pable; when  his  conscience  is  cast  down,  and  his 
passions  rule  without  restraint.  The  destruction  of 
republican  Rome  was  caused  by  the  vast  increase 
of  ill  gotten  wealth,  by  the  substitution  of  slave 
labor  for  free  industry,  and  by  the  subordination  of 
the  civil  to  the  military  power.  In  the  last  century 
of  the  old  era  the  end  came.  In  that  century  power 
was  rapidly  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  very  few 
men.  The  military  chieftans  occupied  the  position 
in  the  world  then  which  the  captains  of  industry 
hold  to-day.  Pompey,  the  conqueror  of  the  East, 
representing  the  old  aristocracy  in  the  Senate, 


*Suetonius,  Lives  of  the  Twelve  Caesars,  passim. 


THE  STATE.  25 

Caesar,  the  quaestor  of  Spain  and  the  leader  of 
the  Democratic  party,  together  with  Crassus,  the 
richest  man  in  the  Roman  world,  formed  the  first 
trust,*  and  divided  that  Roman  world  between 
them.  Crassus  was  killed  in  his  illfated  expedition 
into  Parthia ;  and  the  Senate,  fearing  the  rising  for- 
tunes of  Caesar  in  Gaul,  and  the  triumph,  in  his 
person,  of  the  Plebeian  or  Democratic  party,  roused 
against  him  the  jealousy  of  Pompey,  and  arrayed 
these  great  chieftans  against  each  other,  in  the 
hope  that  each  would  destroy  the  other  and  so 
leave  them,  the  senators,  free  to  rob  the  world  at 
their  ease.  But  the  genius  of  Caesar  was  too  much 
for  them.  While  Pompey  was  vacillating,  Caesar 
was  acting.  In  violation  of  the  Constitution,  he 
marched  with  his  legions  from  Gaul  to  Rome; 
drove  the  cowardly  Senate  before  him;  pursued 
Pompey  beyond  the  Adriatic ;  and  on  the  field  of 
Pharsalia  ended  forever  the  power  of  the  Senate 
and  the  duration  of  Republican  institutions  in 
Rome. 

The  Roman  world,  as  it  lay  at  the  feet  of  Caesar 


26  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

on  the  night  of  Pharsalia,  was  a  world  without  a 
government,  a  world  without  virtue,  and  a  world 
without  religion.  And  this  man,  Caius  Julius 
Cassar,  in  the  far-reach  and  plenitude  of  his  genius, 
became  himself  all  these  to  the  world.  The  word  of 
Cassar  became  the  law,  obedience  to  Caesar  the  gov- 
ernment, attachment  to  Caesar  the  virtue,  and  wor- 
ship of  Caesar  the  religion,  of  the  world.  Only  one 
other  personality  can  compete  with  the  personality 
of  Caesar  for  pre-eminence  among  men,  and  that 
personality  was  not  yet  born  into  the  world.  In  his 
day  there  was  no  one,  far  or  near,  to  compete  with 
Caesar  for  supremacy.  He  gathered  into  his  hands 
all  the  powers  of  the  Roman  republic.  He  was 
clothed  by  the  Senate  for  life  with  the  Imperium. 
He  was  the  Imperator,  Emperor,  or  Commander 
of  all  the  armies  in  all  the  provinces.  Outside  of 
Italy  his  word  was  the  only  law ;  within  Italy  itself 
the  Senate  and  the  people  were  obedient  to  his 
will.  As  Pontifex  Maximus  he  was  clothed  with 
all  the  majesty  and  mystery  of  the  national  religion. 
In  his  day  Caesar  stood  alone  like  a  God, — an  object 
of  fear,  of  reverence,  of  love,  and  of  hatred.  He 


THE  STATE.  27 

was  the  state,  he  was  the  church,  and  beside  him 
there  was  no  other.  He  filled  the  whole  horizon  of 
the  heavens,  and  men  bowed  to  him  as  to  a  deity. 

And  when  Caesar  died  at  the  foot  of  Pompey's 
pillar  his  great  personality  did  not  perish  with  his 
mortal  frame.  That  personality  brooded  for  cen- 
turies; yes,  it  broods  still,  over  the  political  life  of 
man.  Caesar  was  the  incarnation  of  the  state.  In 
him  the  old  Roman  idea  of  the  state  as  a  Thing 
apart  from  the  people,  was  personified.  It  was  a 
Thing  mysterious  in  its  nature  and  awful  in  its 
power.  It  had  but  to  speak  the  word,  and  men 
must  forsake  their  homes,  their  wives,  and  their 
children,  and  march  away  to  leave  their  bones  in  the 
sands  of  Africa,  in  the  forests  of  Germany,  and  on 
the  mountains  of  Caucasus.  This  dreadful  Thing 
could  come  and  wring  the  last  drachma  from  the 
hand  of  the  peasant,  and  leave  him  and  his  wife 
and  his  babes  to  perish  with  hunger.  This  Thing 
could  come  into  a  land  smiling  with  plenty  and 
leave  it  a  desolate  waste.  This  Thing  could  enter 
into  the  palace  of  the  greatest  of  the  Senators,  and 
he  must  follow  it  to  the  dungeon  and  to  death. 


28  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

The  state  as  it  was  incarnate  in  Caesar  was  the  in- 
carnation of  death  and  destruction.  But  it  had  this 
great  and  necessary  virtue, — it  allowed  no  one  to 
rob  and  kill  but  itself.  It  brought  a  certain  peace 
and  quiet  into  the  world. 

The  state  as  a  Thing  was  passed  on  as  private 
property  to  the  grandnephew  of  Caesar,  the  young 
and  beautiful  Octavianus, — called  Augustus, — who 
consolidated  the  power  and  increased  the  value  of 
the  property  which  he  inherited  from  his  great-uncle. 
In  some  respects  Augustus  is  even  a  more  wonder- 
ful personality  than  Caesar.  He  was  not,  like 
Caesar,  a  great  military  or  literary  genius ;  not,  like 
him,  a  great  statesman.  He  was  a  consummate 
organizer;  an  astute  politician.  But,  because  he 
was  that  Thing,  the  Roman  state,  he  could  speak 
his  quiet  word  in  his  house  on  the  Palatine  and  a 
man  would  die  in  the  city  of  Antioch.  He  could 
issue  his  decree  and  a  province  would  be  laid  waste 
by  cruel  taxation.  During  the  long  reign  of  Au- 
gustus the  Roman  Empire  became  firmly  estab- 
lished in  his  person,  and  at  his  death  passed  on,  as 
a  matter  course,  to  his  adopted  son  Tiberius. 


THE  STATE.  29 

And  here  let  us  pause  and  marvel  at  this  Thing, 
— the  Roman  state, — which,  since  the  days  of 
Caesar,  has  been  the  ideal  of  the  state  in  the  world. 
The  state  is  a  Thing, — a  corporation,  a  body  politic ; 
throughout  the  history  of  Christendom  for  the  most 
part  a  private  Thing,  the  property  of  its  chief  office 
holder,  handed  on  from  father  to  son  as  any 
other  chattel.  This  Thing  dominated  all  other 
things  and  persons;  having  interests  of  its  own 
which  are  not  the  interests  of  the  people  who  belong 
to  it.  It  can,  and  it  does  to-day,  send  its  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  from  their  homes  in  Russia  to 
perish  in  the  fields  of  Manchuria.  It  can,  and  it 
does,  rob  the  people  to  the  point  of  starvation  that  it 
may  build  itself  warships,  and  arm  its  soldiers  with 
mauser  and  maxim  guns.  It  can,  and  it  does,  take 
from  the  poor  and  give  to  the  rich.  It  compels  the 
peasant  to  eat  black  bread  and  sleep  on  straw  in  or- 
der that  the  Emperor  may  gorge  himself  with  orto- 
lans, stupefy  himself  with  Falernian  wine,  build  his 
golden  house  in  Rome,  and  his  marble  palace  in 
Baiae.  All  this  the  state  as  incarnate  in  Caesar,  and 
as  it  survives  in  the  modern  world,  did  and  does.  It 
does,  indeed,  prevent  the  peasant  from  killing  and 
robbing  the  peasant,  but  only  on  condition  that  it 


30  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

may  rob  and  kill  at  its  will.  The  Roman  Empire, 
and  too  often  the  modern  state,  is  simply  the  lesser 
of  two  evils.  It  substitutes  despotism  for  anarchy. 

Because  the  Roman  Empire  was  this  awful 
Thing;  because  it  did  hold  in  its  machine-like 
hands  the  lives  of  men  and  the  destinies  of  the  peo- 
ple; because  it  did  sometimes  save  the  peoples  from 
falling  upon  and  destroying  one  another, — therefore 
it  was  that  the  Roman  state,  in  the  person  of  the 
Emperor,  was  worshipped  as  divine.  The  old  re- 
ligions were  dead,  the  gods  of  the  hills  and  the  gods 
of  the  groves  were  driven  each  from  his  shrine  by 
the  growing  power  of  the  critical  reason  and  the 
corroding  power  of  the  corrupted  conscience.  What 
was  good  and  what  was  bad  in  man  combined  to 
work  the  destruction  of  the  ancient  faith,  and  for 
the  time  being  there  was  no  other  divine  thing  for 
men  to  fear  but  the  divinity  of  the  Roman  Empire ; 
no  other  God  but  Divus  Caesar. 

But  just  then  another  came  to  establish  a  new  di- 
vinity, and  to  compete  with  Caesar  for  the  worship 
of  the  world. 


The  Attitude  of  Jesus  to  the  State. 

Seventy-three  years  after  the  death  of  Julius 
Caesar,  fifteen  years  after  the  death  of  Octavianus 
Caesar,  called  Augustus,  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius 
Caesar,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  son  of  Joseph;*  a  car- 
penter of  upper  Galilee,  laid  aside  the  tools  of  His 
trade  and  went  down  to  the  crossings  of  the  Jordan 
near  Jericho;  attracted  by  the  preaching  of  a  new 
and  strange  preacher,  who  was  stirring  up  the  peo- 
ple by  his  vigorous  denunciations  of  the  evils  of  his 
day,  calling  the  people  to  repentance,  and  proclaim- 
ing the  immediate  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.f 

The  departure  of  Jesus  from  Nazareth  in  the  fif- 
teenth year  of  Tiberius  Caesar  marks  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  world.  With  this 
departure  Jesus  began  a  public  career,  which,  while 
it  lasted  only  for  about  thirty-six  months,  was 
fraught  with  eternal  consequences  to  the  life  of  man 
on  the  earth.  Jesus,  as  He  turned  His  back  on  Naz- 
areth and  joined  the  crowd  that  was  hurrying  to 
hear  John  the  Baptist,  carried  within  Himself  forces 


*S.  John  1-46. 

tSt.  Matthew,  chap.  in. 


32  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

that  were  to  profoundly  modify  the  social,  the  po- 
litical, and  the  religious  life  of  mankind.  The  acts 
and  words  of  Jesus,  which  followed  His  departure 
from  Nazareth,  gave  rise  to  a  new  and  strange  peo- 
ple, who,  entering  into  the  Roman  Empire,  gradu- 
ally assimilated  its  better  elements,  and  became 
in  time  the  Roman  Empire  itself.  Resting  on  the 
authority  of  Jesus,  a  new  race  of  rulers  rose  up  in 
the  world,  who,  after  centuries  of  conflict  with  the 
power  of  the  Caesars,  supplanted  that  power, 
seated  themselves  in  the  chair  of  the  Caesars  in  the 
city  of  Rome,  and  from  their  seat  in  that  city  ruled 
a  wider  world  with  a  more  enduring  dominion. 

This  effect  of  the  life  of  Jesus  upon  the  life  of 
the  world  is  the  great  mystery  of  history,  and  its 
mystery  lies  in  its  very  simplicity.  It  is  mysterious 
just  as  all  beginnings  of  life  are  mysterious.  The 
Christian  world  has  been  engaged  for  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  in  trying  to  fully  explain  the  mystery  of 
Jesus,  and  is  as  far  to  day  from  any  perfectly  satis- 
factory explanation  as  it  was  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era. 

But  the  fact  itself,  like  the  birth  of  a  child,  is,  if 
not  the  simplest,  yet  the  commonest,  thing  in  the 
world.  The  history  of  Jesus  is  the  product  of  his- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    33 

toric  causes.  He  was  born  in  due  time  to  meet  a 
great  opportunity.  When  Jesus  left  Nazareth  to 
enter  public  life  human  society  was  ready  for  the 
greatest  revolution  in  its  history,  and  Jesus  was  the 
Man  created  for  the  purpose  of  inaugurating  the 
movement  that  was  to  change  the  base  of  human 
life,  making  love  instead  of  fear  the  motive  of 
human  action ;  resting  all  government  upon  persua- 
sion and  consent,  rather  than  upon  force,  and  so 
creating  a  new  ideal  for  human  endeavor.  Human 
society  was  ready  for  this  new  civilization  because 
the  ancient  civilization  had  done  its  work  and  was 
at  the  point  of  death.  The  reorganization  of  the 
Roman  world  by  Julius  Caesar  had  only  arrested 
the  progress;  it  had  not  cured  the  evils  that  were 
sapping  the  life  of  the  Roman  people.  Augustus 
Caesar  struggled  in  vain  against  the  tendencies  of 
the  times.  The  lord  of  the  world,  who  commanded 
all  the  armies  of  the  Empire;  who  could  waste  a 
province  or  destroy  a  city ;  at  whose  word  the  great- 
est of  the  Romans  had  been  put  to  death, — was  not 
able  to  rule  his  own  household,  nor  to  regulate  the 
passions  of  his  own  daughter.  The  failure  of  the 
imperial  system  and  the  corruption  of  Roman  life 
manifested  themselves  most  terribly  in  the  imperial 
REL.  &  POL.— 3 


34  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

family  itself.  A  glance  at  the  history  of  that  family 
will  reveal  to  us  the  moral  condition  of  the  Roman 
world  better  than  a  more  general  survey  of  the 
social  life  of  the  Empire.  Julius  Caesar  was  mur- 
dered by  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  or  Oligarchi- 
cal party  in  Rome  in  the  fifty-third  year  of  his  age. 
Though  three  times  married,  he  left  no  children. 
His  appointed  heir  was  his  grandnephew  Octavi- 
anus,  who  with  consummate  skill  reestablished  the 
Empire  of  his  uncle  in  his  own  person,  and  reigned 
over  the  Roman  world  for  more  than  fifty  years. 
At  the  beginning  of  his  career,  when  he  was  twenty- 
three  years  old,  Octavianus  married  for  purely  polit- 
ical reasons  a  woman  much  older  than  himself. 
This  woman  was  Scribonia,  who  had  powerful 
connections  in  the  Republican  or  Oligarchical 
party  and  who  was  chosen  as  his  wife  by  the  Caesar 
for  the  purpose  of  attaching  that  party  to  his  own 
person,  and  so  healing  the  divisions  in  the  Roman 
state.  Scribonia  had  been  twice  a  widow,  and  had 
no  hold  upon  the  affections  of  her  young  husband. 
Within  a  year  of  his  marriage  Caesar  Augustus 
fell  violently  in  love  with  Livia,  the  beautiful  young 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    35 

wife  of  Claudius  Nero.  Caesar  divorced  his  own 
wife,  Scribonia,  just  as  she  gave  birth  to  his 
daughter  and  only  child,  Julia.  At  his  command, 
Claudius  Nero  divorced  Livia,  and  then  Augustus 
and  Livia  were  married.  At  the  time  of  her  mar- 
riage Livia  was  the  mother  of  one  son,  Tiberius 
Nero,  who  was  afterwards  adopted  by  Augustus, 
and  succeeded  to  the  Empire.  This  succession  of 
divorces  and  marriages  caused  great  scandal,  even 
in  the  dissolute  society  of  Rome.*  But  after  this 
Augustus  gave  no  further  offense;  his  love  for 
Livia  ended  only  with  his  life,  and  she  was  his 
faithful  wife  for  more  than  fifty  years.  But  this 
marriage,  if  it  brought  happiness  to  Augustus,  was 
the  cause  of  far-reaching  misery  to  his  family. 
Scribonia,  as  the  mother  of  Julia,  could  not  be 
ignored.  She  was  the  head  of  a  faction  in  the 
palace.  Her  daughter  was  married  first  to  her 
cousin  Marcellus,  and,  when  he  died,  was  given  to 
the  great  friend  and  general  of  the  Emperor,  Vip- 
sanius  Agrippa,  by  whom  Julia  had  three  sons, 
Caius  Julius  Caesar,  Lucius  Julius  Caesar,  and 


*After  her  marriage  to  Augustus,  Livia  gave  birth  to  a 
son  by  her  former  husband.  Augustus  sent  the  child  to 
his  father,  Claudius  Nero. 


36  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Agrippa  Posthumus,  the  last  so  called  because  he 
was  born  after  his  father's  death.  Caius  Julius 
Caesar  and  his  brother  Lucius  were  adopted  by  their 
grandfather,  Augustus,  and  grew  up  under  his  eye. 
In  them  the  Julian  family  seemed  firmly  established 
and  the  succession  of  the  Empire  secured  for  gen- 
erations to  come.  But  alas  for  the  vanity  of  human 
hopes !  These  young  princes  died  within  eighteen 
months  of  each  other,  poisoned  according  to  Roman 
gossip,  by  Livia,  Caesar's  wife,  to  make  room  for  her 
own  son.  These  deaths  left,  as  the  only  descendant  of 
Augustus,  Agrippa  Posthumus,  who  was  an  idiotic 
maniac,  and  was  afterward  murdered,  it  is  sup- 
posed, at  the  command  of  his  grandfather,  at  the 
time  of  the  Emperor's  death. 

The  last  years  of  the  Emperor  Augustus  were 
blighted  by  a  sorrow  even  more  terrible  than  the 
death  of  his  grandsons.  After  the  death  of  her 
husband,  Agrippa,  Julia,  the  daughter  of  Augustus, 
then  in  her  twenty-eighth  year,  was  given  in  mar- 
riage to  the  son  of  Livia.  This  son,  Tiberius  Nero, 
was  a  man  of  sullen  disposition,  whose  life  had  been 
soured  by  his  treatment  by  the  Julian  faction  in  the 
palace.  As  the  son  of  Livia,  he  was  hated  by  Scri- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    37 

bonia,  the  mother  of  Julia.  During  the  lifetime  of 
the  young  princes,  Caius  and  Lucius,  the  heart  of 
the  Emperor  was  cold  toward  Tiberius,  and  the  son 
of  Livia  passed  a  number  of  wretched  years  in  vol- 
untary exile.  After  the  death  of  Agrippa  he  was 
called  back  to  Rome  to  marry  Julia.  Tiberius  hated 
this  woman,  who  had  been  the  cause  of  his  lifelong 
unhappiness,  and  he  hated  her  yet  the  more  because 
of  her  glaring  infidelities.  Julia  had  long  been 
known  to  everybody,  except  her  father,  as  the  most 
dissolute  woman  in  Rome.  She  abandoned  herself 
freely  to  every  passing  fancy,  and  there  was  hardly 
a  young  man  of  note  in  Rome  who  had  not  at  some 
time  been  her  lover.  Her  husband,  disgusted  at  her 
levity,  returned  into  voluntary  exile  at  Rhodes.  Her 
father,  still  thinking  her  a  paragon  of  chastity,  held 
her  up  to  laughing  Rome  as  a  modern  Lucretia. 
When  her  iniquities  could  no  longer  be  concealed, 
the  revelation  of  her  evil  life  came  upon  Augustus 
as  a  stroke  of  lightning.  He  shut  himself  up  in  his 
house,  bowed  his  gray  head  in  agony,  and  would  not 
speak  a  word.  He  did  not,  however,  shield  his 
guilty  daughter.  She  was  tried  and  condemned  by 
the  senate,  and  sent  into  exile,  and  spent  the  rest  of 
her  life  in  prison  on  a  barren  island  in  the  sea. 


38  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

On  the  death  of  Augustus,  Tiberius  Nero,  the 
son  of  his  wife,  Livia,  ascended  the  throne.  Tibe- 
rius at  the  time  of  his  accession  was  a  sour,  disap- 
pointed man,  despising  the  world  over  which  he  was 
called  to  rule.  He  left  the  government  mostly  in  the 
hands  of  favorites,  and  lived  for  the  greater  part  of 
his  reign  in  seclusion,  indulging,  according  to  some, 
in  the  most  shameless  debaucheries,  and,  according 
to  others,  mourning  austerely  over  the  corruption 
of  Rome.  Suspicious  of  everyone,  he  caused  many 
of  the  senators  to  be  put  to  death,  and  his  last  years 
were  the  most  wretched  of  his  miserable  existence. 
His  death  was  hailed  as  a  happy  deliverance,  and 
was  hastened,  it  is  said,  by  the  act  of  his  successor. 

Now  it  was  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  this  Tiberius 
Caesar  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  entered  upon  his 
mission  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  He  was  per- 
fectly acquainted  with  the  state  of  the  world.  No- 
where was  the  Roman  power  more  odious  than  in 
upper  Gallilee.  The  representative  of  the  imperial 
government  in  that  region  was  Herod  Antipas,  the 
murderer  of  John  the  Baptist.  The  attitude  of 
Jesus  toward  the  Roman  state  was  that  of  horror, 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    39 

of  undying  hatred  and  contempt.  It  is  true  that  the 
allusions  to  the  Roman  Empire  are  few  and  obscure 
in  the  written  lives  of  Jesus.  His  conflict  was  not 
so  much  with  the  Roman  state  as  it  was  with  the 
Jewish  religion  of  his  day.  But  that  Jesus  was 
fully  aware  of  the  terrific  evils  of  His  time,  both  in 
church  and  state,  is  evident  from  the  whole  trend 
of  His  thought  and  action. 

When  Jesus  became  conscious  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  His  mission  to  set  up  the  Kingdom  of  God  in 
the  world  He  had  to  consider  the  relation  of  His 
Kingdom  to  the  Empire  of  Rome,  which  was 
already  in  possession  of  the  earth.  It  is  impossible 
that  Jesus  should  not  have  taken  the  Roman  Empire 
into  account.  It  was  the  one  great  fact  of  His  day. 
He  met  its  soldiers,  its  taxgatherers,  its  officials,  at 
every  turn.  He  saw  crosses  on  every  highway  to 
which  the  power  of  Rome  had  nailed  the  children 
of  his  people.  He  saw  men  everywhere  living  in 
perpetual  fear  of  that  wretched,  miserable,  lonely 
man  in  Italy.  Through  Nazareth  passed  one  of  the 
highways  from  Rome  to  the  east,  and  Jesus  must 
have  listened  at  the  khan  to  many  a  dark  story  of 
lust  and  murder  brought  by  the  traveler  from  the 
imperial  city.  His  whole  soul  rose  in  revolt  against 


40  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

this  system  of  government  founded  upon  force,  pro- 
tecting sensuality,  rewarding  the  guilty,  and  de- 
stroying the  innocent. 

The  state  as  it  existed  in  the  time  of  Jesus  was 
not  divine,  but  satanic.  When  the  temptation  came 
to  Him  to  become  another  Caesar,  and  by  the  same 
method  to  take  for  His  own  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  the  glory  of  them,  then  He  saw  in  that 
temptation  to  rule  as  Rome  ruled  by  force  and  fear 
a  rejection  of  God  and  the  worship  of  Satan.  And 
when,  in  the  awful  struggle  in  the  wilderness,  He 
put  that  temptation  behind  Him,  He  determined 
the  nature  of  His  own  Kingdom;  He  prescribed 
His  own  attitude  and  the  attitude  of  His  followers 
toward  the  state  then  existing,  and  toward  the  state 
of  all  time.  In  this  determination,  made  in  the 
wilderness,  to  declare  Himself  the  King  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  the  Master  and  Saviour  of  the 
world,  and  yet  to  do  all  this  without  shedding  a  drop 
of  blood  or  destroying  a  blade  of  grass,  Jesus 
entered  upon  a  career  which  was  sure  to  result,  as 
it  did,  in  His  rejection  by  the  Jews  and  in  His  cruci- 
fixion by  the  Romans.  By  the  Jews  the  actual 
Jesus  was  looked  upon  as  a  traitor;  by  the  Romans 
He  was  held  to  be  a  dangerous  fanatic  and  madman ; 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    41 

and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  contemporary 
Jew  and  Roman  this  estimation  of  Jesus  was  cor- 
rect. The  contemporary  Jew  shared  with  Jesus  His 
undying  hatred  to  the  Roman  power,  but  he  did  not 
hate  it  because  it  was  power,  but  because  it  was 
Roman.  What  the  Jew  wanted  was  to  seize  that 
power  for  himself,  to  become  himself  the  ruling 
nation,  and  to  avenge  upon  the  Roman  the  wrongs 
of  the  Jewish  people.  He  wanted  to  break  in  pieces 
the  nations  like  a  potter's  vessel,  and  to  wash  his 
footsteps  in  the  blood  of  the  ungodly.  The  Jewish 
conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  the  lordship 
of  the  Jew  over  the  world,  ruling  with  a  rod  of  iron, 
leading  the  people  captive,  binding  their  Kings  in 
chains,  and  their  nobles  with  links  of  iron.  Now  to 
all  this  hope  and  expectation  of  the  Jews  Jesus  was 
a  traitor.  He  hated  the  Roman  power,  not  because 
it  was  Roman,  but  because  it  was  power.  The  whole 
system  of  the  state  as  it  existed  in  His  day  was,  in 
the  eyes  of  Jesus,  evil  and  satanic.  He  had  as  His 
mission,  not  the  curing  of  evils  within  the  state, 
much  less  the  mere  transfer  of  the  power  of  the 
state  from  the  hand  of  the  Roman  to  the  hand  of 
the  Jew.  The  mission  of  Jesus,  as  He  conceived  it, 
was  far  more  radical  than  this ;  it  was  not  to  allevi- 


42  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

ate  or  to  change,  it  was  to  destroy  the  state ;  to  take 
man  wholly  out  of  its  power,  and  so  render  it  use- 
less and  unnecessary. 

The  teaching  of  Jesus  undermined  the  very  foun- 
dation of  the  state  as  it  existed  in  the  ancient  world. 
The  ancient  doctrine  taught  that  the  state  was 
divine ;  a  holy  Thing  to  be  worshipped,  sacred  from 
the  touch  of  man.  Man  existed  for  the  state,  not 
the  state  for  man.  Now  Jesus  asserted  the  sover- 
eignty of  man.  He,  the  Son  of  Man,  was  greater 
than  the  Roman  state  or  the  Jewish  synagogue. 
They  could  not  judge  Him,  but  He  could  judge 
them.  In  the  estimation  of  Jesus,  man,  not  the 
state,  was  the  thing  divine.  Institutions  are  for 
man,  not  man  for  institutions.  The  state  does  not 
make  man,  but  man  makes  the  state.  The  state, 
instead  of  being  a  holy  Thing,  a  divine  creation,  is  a 
mere  contrivance  of  man  for  temporary  uses.  Man 
was  before  the  state,  and  will  be  after  the  state  has 
perished.  The  state  can  be  no  better  nor 
wiser  than  the  men  who  make  it  and  use  it.  At  its 
best,  it  reflects  human  imperfection;  at  its  worst, 
human  depravity.  In  all  ages  the  state  has  mani- 
fested, not  the  highest,  but  the  lowest,  aspects  of 
human  life.  The  student  of  history  stands  aghast 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    43 

at  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  human  government. 
The  great  criminals  of  the  world  have  been  too 
often  the  rulers  of  the  people.  The  state  is  not  from 
above,  it  is  from  beneath.  It  had  its  origin  in  fear. 
Men  gathered  together  on  the  hills  of  Rome  and  built 
walls  about  them  because  they  were  afraid.  If  man 
had  not  been  a  savage  he  would  have  needed  no 
walls.  To-day  the  state  has  vast  military  arma- 
ments and  costly  war  vessels  because  it  is  afraid. 
If  man  were  not  a  barbarian,  he  would  need  no 
soldiers.  Savage  is  afraid  of  savage,  barbarian  of 
barbarian,  and  so  fear  rules  the  world.  But  fear  is 
a  debasing  passion.  Fear  engenders  hate,  and  hate 
engenders  fear;  and  these  twin  monsters,  hate  and 
fear,  have  been  seated  at  the  council  board  of  the 
nations  since  ever  the  nations  began  to  be. 

It  was  the  mission  of  Jesus  to  cast  out  the  devils 
of  fear  and  hate  from  the  world.  Men  fear  one 
another  and  hate  one  another,  so  they  make  war  on 
one  another.  Jesus  taught  men  to  love  one  another 
and  hope  the  best  from  one  another.  Man,  in  his 
childishness,  dreads  the  unusual,  and  hates  the 
stranger.  In  the  ancient  world  every  strange  man 
was  an  enemy.  The  very  words  "stranger"  and 
"enemy"  were  synonymous.  The  Jew  called  the 


44  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

rest  of  the  world  Gentile  by  way  of  reproach,  the 
Greek  and  the  Roman  feared  and  despised  the  out- 
lying barbarian  world ;  just  as  to-day  the  Chinaman 
cries  foreign  devil  after  every  stranger,  and  the 
Anglo  Saxon  despises  all  other  races, — especially  if 
their  skin  is  a  little  darker  than  his  own.  Now 
Jesus  saw  the  folly  of  all  this.  He  saw  that  man  is 
not  the  natural  enemy,  but  the  natural  friend,  of 
man.  He  said :  Ye  have  heard  of  old  time,  ye  shall 
love  your  neighbors  and  hate  the  stranger.  But  I 
say  unto  you,  love  the  stranger,  and  pray  for  them 
that  make  war  on  you  that  ye  may  be  the  sons  of 
your  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  A  military  estab- 
lishment was,  in  the  eyes  of  Jesus,  a  most  damnable 
expression  of  atheism.  It  was  a  denial  of  the 
Father,  Whose  love  is  over  all  His  children.  For 
fear  Jesus  substituted  hope ;  for  hate,  love ;  for  vio- 
lence, gentleness ;  for  force,  persuasion.  He  carried 
the  world  from  the  physical  to  the  moral  basis. 
The  weapons  of  his  warfare  were  spiritual,  not  car- 
nal, but  were  mighty  to  the  breaking  down  of 
strongholds.  The  great  distinctive  doctrine  of 
Jesus  was, — resist  not  evil.  There  is  no  place  for 
an  army  or  a  navy  in  human  life  as  that  life  is 
manifested  in  the  life  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.   45 

If  Jesus  had  no  use  for  an  army  or  a  navy,  he 
had  even  less  use  for  courts  of  law.  The  adminis- 
tration of  so-called  human  justice,  which  is  a  princi- 
pal function  of  the  state,  was,  in  the  eyes  of  Jesus, 
little  better  than  a  travesty  of  divine  justice  and  a 
woeful  waste  of  time  and  strength.  The  only  per- 
sons who  really  profit  by  the  vast  system  which  goes 
under  the  name  of  law  are  the  lawyers;  the  men 
who  make  law  a  profession.  The  lawyers  make  the 
laws,  and  afterward  the  lawyers  dispute  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  laws,  and  then  lawyers  interpret  the 
laws;  and  so  the  vicious  circle  goes  round  and 
round. 

For  the  courts  and  the  lawyers  of  His  day  Jesus 
had  unconcealed  hatred  and  contempt.  He  said  to 
His  followers :  "Agree  with  thine  adversary  quickly 
whilst  thou  art  in  the  way  with  him,  lest  haply  the 
adversary  deliver  thee  to  the  judge  and  the  judge 
deliver  thee  to  the  officer,  and  thou  be  cast  into 
prison.  Verily  I  say  unto  thee  thou  shalt  by  no 
means  come  out  thence  till  thou  have  paid  the  last 
farthing," — *not  the  last  forthing  you  owe,  but  the 
last  farthing  you  have.  In  olden  times,  as  in  mod- 
ern, the  law  was  an  expensive  luxury,  with  which 


*St.  Matthew,  v.,  25,  26. 


46  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  for  the  ordinary  man  to 
have  nothing  to  do.  Not  only  did  Jesus  condemn 
the  Roman  system  of  jurisprudence,  but  his  anger 
was  kindled  to  the  white  heat  by  the  whole  legal 
system  of  the  Jews.  This  system  of  robbery  was 
the  more  hateful  to  Him  because  it  was  sancti- 
monius.  "Woe  unto  you  lawyers,"  he  cried,  "for  ye 
lade  men  with  burdens  grievous  to  be  borne,  and  ye 
yourselves  will  not  touch  the  burdens  with  one  of 
your  fingers.  Woe  unto  you  who  devour  widows' 
houses,  and  for  pretence  make  long  prayers."* 

The  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  the  law  was  the 
natural  corollary  of  His  attitude  to  that  other  insti- 
tution created  by  the  law, — private  property.  The 
state  exists  in  a  great  degree  to  protect  property 
rights,  and  for  property  rights  Jesus  had  very  little 
respect,  because  property  itself  was  of  little  value 
in  His  eyes.  He  looked  with  pity  on  that  eagerness 
with  which  men  accumulate  things.  "A  man's  life," 
He  said,  "does  not  consist  in  the  abundance  of  the 
things  which  he  possesses."!  He  said  of  the  man 
whose  barns  were  bursting,  and  who  was  planning 
to  build  new  ones :  "Thou  fool !  this  night  shall  thy 


*St.  Matthew,  XXIH.  ;  St.  Luke,  XL,  46,  etc. 
tSt.  Luke,  xii.,  15. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    47 

soul  be  required  of  thee."*  Covetousness  was,  in 
His  estimation,  a  crime  against  the  soul.  The  King- 
dom of  heaven  was  a  Kingdom  of  love,  and  joy, 
and  peace,  not  gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones. 
To  prefer  a  piece  of  land  or  a  piece  of  cloth  to  peace 
of  mind  was,  in  the  opinion  of  Jesus,  the  extreme  of 
foolishness.  Does  a  man  sue  you  at  law  for  your 
cloak,  let  him  have  your  coat  also.  You  will  be  the 
gainer  by  doing  this.  You  will  retain  that  most 
necessary  condition  of  human  happiness, — serenity 
of  soul.  You  can  be  happy  without  a  cloak;  you 
can  be  happy  without  a  coat;  but  you  cannot  be 
happy  without  a  quiet  mind.  In  so  far  as  men  fol- 
low the  teachings  of  Jesus,  just  so  far  do  they  ren- 
der useless  that  vast  machinery  by  which  men  at- 
tempt to  administer  what  they  call  justice  in  the 
world. 

Another  feature  of  the  state  that  roused  the 
wrath  of  Jesus  was  the  insolence  and  venality  of 
the  office-holding  class.  The  young  Nazarene  was 
amazed  as  he  saw  men  running  after  and  bowing 
down  to  their  rulers  in  church  and  state.  These 
officeholders  were  using  the  people  for  their  own 
advantage,  gaining  glory  for  themselves  by  killing 

*St.  Luke,  xn. ;  20. 


48  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  people;  growing  rich  by  robbing  the  people, 
glutting  their  pride  by  lording  it  over  the  people, 
and  for  all  this  the  people  gave  them  adulation  and 
worship.  Men  desired  high  place  in  the  state,  not 
that  they  might  serve  the  people,  but  that  the  people 
might  serve  them.  Jesus  looked  upon  the  whole 
office-holding  class  from  the  Emperor  down  as  a 
parasite  on  the  body  politic,  and  He  said  to  His 
followers :  It  shall  not  be  so  among  you,  but  whoso- 
ever will  be  great  among  you  let  him  be  your  ser- 
vant; and  whosoever  will  be  first  among  you,  let 
him  be  your  slave.*  Servants  are  useful  and  slaves 
are  profitable;  but  as  for  these  Emperors,  judges, 
high  priests,  and  what  not,  whom  foolish  men  wor- 
ship and  call  benefactors,  they  lord  it  over  the 
people  and  exercise  authority  upon  them,  not  for 
the  good  of  the  people,  but  for  their  own  gain  and 
glory,  and,  instead  of  being  useful  members  of  so- 
ciety, do  nothing  but  waste  and  destroy,  and  are  no 
better  than  murderers,  robbers,  theives,  and  para- 
sites. 

This  critical,  and  even  hostile,  attitude  of  Jesus 
toward  the  state  we  learn,  not  so  much  from  any 
direct  allusion  to  the  Roman  power  in  the  gospel 


*St.  Matthew,  xx. :  26,  27. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    49 

history,  as  from  the  whole  trend  of  His  life  and 
teaching.  It  was  not  a  part  of  the  plan  of  the 
Master  to  come  into  direct  collision  with  the  Roman 
government  until  He  was  ready.  He  was  perfectly 
willing  to  throw  to  Caesar,  Caesar's  penny  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  Caesar  quiet  while  he  went  on 
with  His  work  for  God.  But  He  would  not  for  one 
single  moment  yield  to  Caesar,  or  to  Caesar's  min- 
ions, in  any  thing  that  had  to  do  with  His  mission 
in  the  world.  When  they  came  and  told  Him  to  get 
out  of  Galilee  because  Herod  sought  to  kill  Him, 
He  said  with  fine  scorn :  "Go  ye  and  tell  that  fox, 
behold  I  cast  out  demons  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and 
the  third  day  I  am  perfected;"  or  as  a  better  ren- 
dering: "I  end  my  course."* 

It  may  be  difficult  for  us  to  think  of  Jesus  as  in 
this  critical  and  hostile  attitude  toward  the  state. 
We  have  thought  of  Him  so  long  as  a  mythological 
being;  we  have  talked  of  Him  so  long  as  meta- 
physical abstraction,  and  have  placed  Him  for  cen- 
turies out  of  the  reach  of  human  vicissitudes,  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high,  that  we  cannot 
view  Him  in  His  historical  relations  without  a 
shock  to  our  reverence.  Yet  this  historical  Jesus  is 


*St.  Luke,  xin. :  32. 
REL.  &  POL— 4 


So  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  real  Jesus ;  the  Man  of  God,  who  founded  the 
religion  called  Christian,  and  from  whose  life  and 
teaching  the  institution  called  the  church  had  its 
origin.  Living  at  the  time  in  which  He  did  live, 
Jesus  could  not  help  seeing  the  Roman  state  in  all 
its  hideousness,  and  seeing,  He  could  not  help  con- 
demning. He  saw  Roman  soldiers  bringing  in 
women  and  girls  and  boys  whom  they  had  torn  from 
their  homes  in  Armenia  and  Parthia,  and  were  tak- 
ing to  sell  into  debasing  slavery  in  Rome.  He  saw 
men  chained  in  gangs  being  driven  to  the  imperial 
city,  there  to  kill  one  another  in  the  circus  for  the 
amusement  of  the  Roman  populace.  As  He  walked 
along  the  highways,  He  stood  again  and  again  be- 
neath a  cross  and  watched  the  death  agony  of  some 
wretched  Galilean,  who  had  offended  the  majesty 
of  Rome,  and,  after  a  mock  trial,  had  been  nailed  to 
the  cross  and  left  there  to  die.  Jesus,  as  He 
watched  that  writhing  and  cursing  man,  saw  in  this 
shameful  death  His  own  approaching  doom. 

If  Jesus  was  a  man,  such  as  His  history  shows 
Him  to  be,  and  lived  at  the  time  when  history  says 
He  did,  then  He  must  have  seen  all  of  these  iniqui- 
ties, and,  having  seen,  He  could  not  help  condemn- 
ing ;  and  this  condemnation  led  Him  to  conceive  of  a 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    51 

society  in  which  none  of  these  evils  should  have  a 
place;  a  society  in  which  rulers  should  not  lord  it 
over  the  people.  Where  there  should  be  no  military 
establishments  to  consume  the  substance  of  the 
people,  and  be  the  instrument  of  their  oppression; 
where  men  should  not  undertake  to  judge  men,  but 
should  leave  all  judgment  to  the  One  Judge  and 
Lawgiver.  A  society  such  as  Jesus  had  in  mind 
would  not  fear  the  thief  or  robber  because  it  would 
value  nothing  that  the  robber  could  take  away  or 
the  thief  could  steal ;  it  would  not  fear  the  murderer, 
for  the  murderer  could  only  kill  the  body,  and  could 
not  reach  the  true  seat  of  life,  which  is  in  the  soul. 
We  cannot  understand  Christianity  until  we  come 
to  see  it  as  a  reactionary  movement  against  existing 
conditions.  The  Kingdom  of  God,  which  Jesus 
lived  and  died  to  establish,  was  to  be  all  that  the 
Roman  Empire  was  not :  a  kingdom  of  peace  instead 
of  war,  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  instead  of  in- 
justice, of  mercy  instead  of  cruelty.  It  was  the  ideal 
of  the  great  Idealist,  the  dream  of  the  great 
Dreamer. 

The  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  the  Roman  state  is 
seen  most  clearly  when  He  Himself  comes  into  di- 
rect relation  to  the  state.  On  the  last  day  of  His 


52  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

life  Jesus  stood  accused  of  crime  at  the  bar  of 
Roman  justice.  The  charges  against  Jesus  were 
the  crimes  of  treason  and  sedition, — of  treason 
against  Caesar  because  He  said  that  He  Himself 
was  a  King;  of  sedition  because  he  stirred  up  the 
people  beginning  from  Galilee  even  to  this  place. 
Now  the  accounts  of  the  trial  of  Jesus  are  most  sig- 
nificant of  his  attitude  to  the  Roman  state.  The 
gospel  history  tells  us  that,  when  Pilate  asked  Jesus 
whether  or  not  He  was  guilty  of  the  charges 
brought  against  Him,  Jesus  answered  him  never  a 
word;  and  nothing  that  the  Roman  judge  could  say 
or  do  could  break  the  silence  of  the  prisoner.*  It  is 
true  that  the  Gospel  of  John  represents  Jesus  as 
entering  into  conversation  with  Pilate;  but  it  is  the 
opinion  of  scholars  that  the  conversations  and 
speeches  of  Jesus,  found  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  are 
not  historical, — not  the  words  of  Jesus,  but  words 
ascribed  to  Him  by  the  writer  of  the  Gospel.  The 
earlier  and  more  historical  accounts  of  the  trial  rep- 
resent Jesus  as  maintaining  perfect  silence  in  the 
presence  of  Pilate.  When  Pilate  asked  if  He  were 
King  of  the  Jews,  He  answered  simply,  "So  you 
say;"  to  the  other  charges  He  made  no  answer  at 


*St.   Mark,  xv. ;  Accounts  of  Crucifixion  in  Gospels. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    53 

all.  By  His  silence  Jesus  denied  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Roman  court,  and  refused  to  plead  at  the  bar  of 
that  court.  The  instant  a  man  refuses  to  plead  at 
the  bar  of  a  court  he  renders  that  court  powerless  to 
try  him.  The  court  can  punish  the  accused ;  it  can 
send  him  to  prison  or  to  death;  but  it  cannot  try 
him.  The  whole  onus  of  the  punishment  rests  upon 
the  court;  the  prisoner  is  guiltless  of  his  own  con- 
demnation. Such  action  on  the  part  of  a  prisoner 
is  a  condemnation  of  the  court;  it  is  a  declaration 
on  the  part  of  the  prisoner  that  the  court  has  no 
jurisdiction;  it  puts  the  court  on  its  defense. 
This  is  what  Charles  I.  did  when  he  was  brought  to 
trial ;  what  the  counsel  of  Louis  XVI.  did  when  the 
King  was  accused  before  the  convention.  In  each 
of  these  cases  the  court  was  compelled  to  face  the 
question  of  its  right  to  try  the  prisoner,  and  it  was 
that  question,  and  not  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the 
prisoner,  that  was  the  great  question  at  issue.  And 
is  was  this  question  that  Jesus,  by  His  silence  forced 
upon  the  Roman  governor.  That  silence  said  to 
Pilate:  I  refuse  to  answer;  you  have  no  right  to 
try  me.  That  Pilate  felt  the  embarrassment  of  his 
position  is  evident  from  the  gospel  story.  If  Jesus 
would  only  plead,  answer,  and  explain  Pilate  might 


54  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

condemn  Him  with  some  show  of  justice  or  else 
have  a  reason  to  discharge  Him  from  custody.  The 
refusal  of  Jesus  to  plead  made  the  question  to  be 
answered,  not  a  question  of  His  guilt  or  innocence, 
but  a  question  of  the  right  of  Pilate  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  Him.  Under  the  circumstances,  Pilate 
could  do  nothing  else  but  send  Jesus  to  His  death. 

This  action  of  Jesus  was  not  the  action  of  a  mad 
fanatic;  it  was  the  action  of  the  greatest  moral  in- 
telligence ever  born  into  the  world ;  it  was  the  asser- 
tion of  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  in  which  judgment  of  man  by  man  has  no 
place.  Judge  not  and  ye  shall  not  be  judged ;  con- 
demn not  and  ye  shall  not  be  condemned, — is  the 
rule  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  In  obedience  to  this 
rule,  Jesus  would  not  suffer  the  judgment  of  man. 
He  went  out  to  die  as  a  protest  against  the  method 
by  which  He  and  countless  thousands  had  been 
brought  to  their  death  by  the  injustice  of  the  Roman 
power. 

I  have  nothing  to  do  in  this  lecture  with  the  theo- 
logical aspects  of  the  death  of  Jesus.  We  are  con- 
sidering it  simply  in  relation  to  the  state  which  con- 
demned and  executed  Jesus.  And  the  death  of 
Jesus  is  a  condemnation  of  the  state.  It  brought  out 
as  in  a  lime-light  the  full  hideousness  of  what  in 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  JESUS  TO  THE  STATE.    55 

those  days  men  called  justice.  It  brings  out  as  in  a 
lime-light  the  horror  of  much  that  in  these  days  is 
called  justice. 

As  we  look  out  on  the  world  to-day  with  its  vast 
and  expensive  military  armaments,  with  its  intricate 
and  costly  system  of  so-called  justice;  as  we  see  its 
forbidding  prisons  and  its  degrading  stripes ;  as  we 
think  of  its  gallows  and  its  electric  chairs ;  as  we  see 
the  worship  of  earthly  riches  and  worldly  power; 
man  lording  it  over  man, — the  question  arises,  Was 
not  Jesus  mistaken  after  all?  Is  not  His  judgment 
of  the  world  the  judgment  of  a  feeble  intellect  and 
an  unmanly  heart?  In  making  the  cross,  and  not 
the  flag,  the  symbol  of  human  life  did  not  Jesus 
strike  at  the  very  foundations  of  society  ?  Is  he  not 
a  dangerous  man  whose  death  is  called  for  by  the 
highest  interests  of  the  state?  So  thought  the  men 
of  His  day,  and  they  crucified  Him;  so  think  the 
vast  majority  of  men  in  our  day,  and  they  despise 
Him.  Our  only  answer  is  that  for  ages  the  very 
best  of  mankind  have  seen  in  Jesus  the  manifesta- 
tion of  God,  have  found  in  His  teaching  salvation, 
and  in  His  death  redemption,  and  believe  Him  to  be 
the  Judge  of  the  world.  And  further,  we  answer  to 
all  cavils  against  Jesus  that  we  are  at  the  beginning, 
not  at  the  end,  of  the  Christian  era. 


The    Democratic   Church   in    the 
Imperial   State. 

In  the  sixty-fourth  year  of  the  Christian  era, 
about  thirty  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth, the  greater  part  of  the  city  of  Rome  was 
destroyed  by  fire.  This  fire  broke  out  in  the  Circus 
Maximus,  near  where  the  gas  works  stand  in  mod- 
ern Rome.  To  the  mass  of  the  people  this  fire 
seemed,  not  accidental,  but  intentional.  It  broke 
out  in  several  places  at  once.  When  under  control 
in  one  neighborhood,  it  would  blaze  forth  in 
another.  Men  were  seen  running  about  with 
torches,  and  fire  followed  in  their  wake.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  fire  no  efforts  were  made  on  the 
part  of  the  authorities  to  arrest  it.  Thousands 
perished  in  the  flames,  and  the  people  were  driven 
into  the  catacombs  and  quarries  for  shelter ;  women 
died  in  bringing  forth  their  children,  and  the  young 
and  the  aged,  escaping  the  flames,  perished  from 
fatigue  and  exposure.  It  was  the  general  belief  of 
the  people  that  the  Emperor  Nero  was  guilty  of  the 
crime  of  setting  fire  to  the  city.  Nero  had  com- 
56 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    57 

mitted  every  atrocity  possible  to  man.  He  had 
caused  a  large  number  of  the  chief  citizens  of  Rome 
to  be  put  to  death;  he  had  put  away  his  wife,  Oc- 
tavia,  and  had  made  the  imperial  palace  a  shameless 
place ;  he  had  lowered  the  imperial  dignity  by  mak- 
ing of  himself  an  exhibition  to  be  clapped  by  the 
people;  having  a  weak  voice,  he  imagined  himself 
an  Apollo,  and,  because  he  could  write  feeble  lines 
claimed  the  honors  of  a  Homer.  He  poisoned  Brit- 
annicus,  the  son  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  while 
at  supper  with  him,  and  coolly  watched  him  die. 
Agrippina,  his  mother,  to  whom  he  owed  his  eleva- 
tion to  the  throne,  worried  and  thwarted  him,  and 
he  caused  her  to  be  murdered  in  her  bed.  While 
Rome  was  in  flames  Nero  crowned  himself  with 
laurel,  played  upon  his  fiddle,  and  imagined  himself 
at  the  burning  of  Troy.*  He  would  not  allow  the 
people  to  go  near  their  houses  to  take  away  their 
goods,  but  looted  the  city  for  the  benefit  of  the  im- 
perial treasury.  Under  the  circumstances,  it  was 
natural  that  the  people  should  hold  the  Emperor 
responsible  for  the  destruction  of  the  city,  and  the 
murmurs  were  bitter  and  ominous.  To  turn  suspi- 


58  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

cion  from  himself,  the  Emperor  Nero  laid  the  crime 
of  setting  fire  to  the  city  at  the  door  of  a  class  of 
people  who  were  despised  and  hated  by  all  the 
world  round  about  them.  This  helpless,  friendless 
people  were  made  the  scapegoats  of  the  Emperor's 
crime,  and  were  compelled  to  bear  both  the  blame 
and  the  punishment. 

The  celebrated  Roman  historian,  Tacitus,  in  the 
1 5th  book  of  his  Annals,  at  the  44th  chapter,  gives 
an  account  of  this  infamous  transaction  in  the  fol- 
lowing words :  "Hence,  to  suppress  the  rumors,  he 
(Nero)  falsely  charged  with  the  guilt,  and  punished 
with  the  most  exquisite  tortures,  the  persons  com- 
monly called  Christians,  who  were  hated  for  their 
enormities.  Christus,  the  founder  of  that  name,  was 
put  to  death  as  a  criminal  by  Pontius  Pilate,  Procu- 
rator of  Judea,  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius;  but  the 
pernicious  superstition,  repressed  for  a  time,  broke 
out  again,  not  only  in  Judea,  where  the  mischief 
originated,  but  through  the  city  of  Rome  also,  whith- 
er all  things  horrible  and  disgraceful  flow,  from  all 
quarters,  as  to  a  common  receptacle,  and  where  they 
are  encouraged.  Accordingly,  first  these  were  seized 
who  confessed  they  were  Christians;  next,  on  their 
information,  a  vast  multitude  were  convicted,  not 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    59 

so  much  on  the  charge  of  burning  the  city,  as  of 
hating  the  human  race.  And  in  their  death  they 
were  also  made  the  subject  of  sport,  for  they  were 
covered  with  the  hides  of  wild  beasts,  and  worried 
to  death  by  dogs,  or  nailed  to  crosses,  or  set  fire 
to,  and  when  day  declined  burned  to  serve  for 
nocturnal  lights.  Nero  offered  his  garden  for  that 
spectacle  and  exhibited  a  Circensian  game,  indis- 
criminately mingling  with  the  common  people  in 
the  habit  of  charioteer,  or  else  standing  in  his  char- 
iot. Whence  a  feeling  of  compassion  arose  toward 
the  sufferers.  Though  guilty  and  deserving  to  be 
made  examples  of  by  capital  punishment,  yet  they 
excited  the  pity  of  the  people  because  they  seemed 
not  to  be  cut  off  for  the  public  good,  but  victims 
of  the  ferocity  of  one  man." 

This  classical  passage  from  the  historian  Tacitus 
is  of  vast  importance  to  the  Christian,  because  it 
is  the  first  allusion  to  Christianity  by  any  Roman 
or  non-Christian  writer,  and  reveals  to  us  the  esti- 
mation of  Christ  and  his  religion  by  a  man  remark- 
able for  intellectual  insight  and  humane  sentiments. 
Tacitus  was  but  a  child  when  these  events  occurred 
of  which  he  wrote  some  fifty  years  after,  in  the 
reign  of  the  Emperor  Trajan ;  and  you  will  per- 


60  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

ceive  that  he  carried  in  his  heart  through  all  these 
years  an  equal  horror  for  the  wickedness  and  cru- 
elty of  the  Emperor  Nero  and  for  the  superstition 
and  depravity  of  the  Christians. 

We  learn  from  this  passage  that,  within  thirty 
years  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  the  religion  which  He 
founded  had  reached  the  city  of  Rome,  and  His  fol- 
lowers were  sufficiently  numerous  and  important  to 
attract  the  attention  and  to  arouse  the  fears  of  the 
imperial  authorities.  At  that  early  date  Christianity 
had  shown  itself  the  implacable  foe  of  the  im- 
perial system.  The  rapid  progress  of  the  religion  of 
the  Christ  is  not  exceptional  in  the  religious  history 
of  mankind.  Religious  movements  are  always  most 
rapid  and  powerful  in  their  beginning ;  they  are  vio- 
lent outbreaks  of  latent  force ;  they  have  their  origin 
in  that  mysterious  region  of  human  nature  which  we 
now  call  the  subconscious  region;  that  region  in 
which  human  nature  is  in  touch,  not  with  the  seen 
but  with  the  unseen.  Great  religious  movements  are 
the  earthquakes  and  the  volcanic  eruptions  of  human 
life.  For  the  time  being  they  dethrone  the  under- 
standing and  break  through  the  rocky  crust  of  cus- 
tom. Under  the  power  of  a  great  religious  emotion 
man  becomes  intuitive.  He  does  not  reason;  he 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    61 

sees.  He  does  not  act  from  habit;  he  is  the  crea- 
ture of  a  great  impulse.  In  the  eyes  of  those  about 
him,  he  is  either  a  madman  or  a  god.  He  is  the 
destroyer  of  the  old  and  the  creator  of  the  new. 
He  rushes  upon  the  world  like  lava  from  the  crater. 
He  is  a  consuming  fire. 

Now  Christianity  is  one  of  the  four  or  five  great 
original  religious  movements  of  the  human  race, 
and  of  these  four  or  five  is  by  far  the  greatest  and 
most  original.  In  Jesus  the  simple  human  soul 
burst  forth  in  all  its  splendor;  the  face  of  Jesus 
glowed  with  the  light  of  pure  intelligence ;  the  heart 
of  Jesus  beat  with  the  emotion  of  pure  love.  The 
very  garments  that  Jesus  wore  radiated  light  and 
life  from  His  person.  The  words  of  Jesus  were 
living  creatures,  with  wings  to  carry  them  to  the 
uttermost  part  of  the  earth,  having  eyes  to  see  into 
the  very  secrets  of  existence,  to  know  God  and 
man.  Jesus  was  not  so  much  the  founder  of  a  re- 
ligion as  He  was  religion  itself.  He  was  the  pure, 
white  light  of  truth.  He  was  the  piercing  fire  of 
unsullied  love.  He  was  a  glowing  flame  of  holy 
purpose,  and  all  who  came  near  Him  took  fire  from 
Him.  He  was  the  source  of  original  power  to  men. 
His  life  was  the  manifestation  of  the  eternal.  It 


62  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

was  as  indestructible  as  air :  sin  could  not  touch  it : 
death  could  not  hurt  it.  Sin  and  death  were 
destroyed  by  its  presence.  To  understand  religion 
you  must  understand  religious  -men ;  and  of  all  re- 
ligious men  Jesus  is  the  King.  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
and  John  Wesley  are  men  of  the  same  type  only  far 
inferior  to  this  greatest  spiritual  genius  ever  born  in- 
to the  world ;  in  whom  the  Jew  found  his  Messiah, 
his  long  expected  Messenger  from  heaven,  and  in 
whom  the  Greek  saw  in  the  flesh  the  very  word  or 
reason  of  the  eternal  God.  When  we  stand  in  the 
presence  of  Jesus  we  are  in  the  presence  of  destruc- 
tive and  creative  force.  As  His  follower,  Paul  said, 
in  Him  old  things  are  passed  away,  and  all  things 
are  become  new.  As  we  know  to-day  the  estimate 
put  upon  the  person  and  power  of  Jesus  falls  far 
short  of  the  truth.  He  has,  says  Emerson,  not  so 
much  written  His  name,  as  ploughed  it  into  human 
history.  We  are  all  of  us  living  in  the  era  which 
He  ushered  in.  Ours  is  the  Christian  Era,  and  the 
distinctive  forces  of  our  civilization  are  Christian 
forces. 

The  creative  power  of  Jesus  manifested  itself  in 
thought  and  in  life.  In  the  region  of  thought  the 
personality  of  Jesus  inspired  a  great  literature,  and 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    63 

in  the  region  of  life  that  personality  created  a  vast 
institution.  When  we  say  that  the  personality  of 
Jesus  gave  to  the  western  world  the  church  and  the 
Bible,  we  can  by  those  two  words  measure  in  some 
degree  the  extent  and  duration  of  His  influence. 

Of  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  the  Bible  and  of  the 
Bible  to  the  church,  we  are  not  called  to  speak  in 
this  lecture.  We  will  only  say  in  passing  that  Jesus 
is  in  no  way  responsible  for  that  conception  of  the 
Bible  which  prevails  in  modern  life.  Jesus  was 
what  in  these  days  we  should  call  a  higher  critic. 
He  sat  in  judgment  on  the  Scriptures,  discarded 
as  useless  the  greater  portion  of  the  writings  that 
had  come  down  from  the  past,  and  interpreted  the 
whole  in  the  light  of  His  own  reason  and  conscience. 
The  power  of  Jesus  lay  in  the  fact  that  He  was  not 
a  scripturalist :  He  was  a  great  teacher  because  He 
did  not  rest  His  teaching  upon  any  book  or  books, 
but  upon  his  own  intuitive  perception  of  truth.  He 
said :  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them 
of  old  time,  .  .  .  but  I  say  unto  you."*  And 
the  people  were  astonished  at  his  teaching.  "For 
He  taught  them  as  One  having  authority,  and  not 
as  the  scribes."-|-  As  for  the  New  Testament  Scrip- 


*St.  Matthew,  v. :  21,  22.  tSt.  Matthew,  vn. :  28,  29. 


64  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

tures,  while  these  were  inspired  by  the  personality 
of  Jesus,  and  reflect  the  spirit  of  His  life  and  teach- 
ing, yet  He  is  not  directly  responsible  for  them,  as 
they  were  not  written  until  long  after  His  death. 
But,  as  I  have  said,  this  relation  of  Jesus  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  of  the  Scriptures  to  the  church,  is 
not  germane  to  our  present  discussion,  and  I  speak 
of  it  only  in  passing. 

It  may  surprise  us  to  be  told  that  Jesus  is  as  lit- 
tle responsible  for  the  modern  conception  of  the 
church  as  He  is  for  the  modern  notion  of  the  Bible. 
Jesus  did  not  preach  the  church,  but  the  Kingdom 
of  God ;  and,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  from  the  words 
of  Jesus  that  have  come  down  to  us,  the  Kingdom 
of  God  was  an  inward  relation,  not  an  outward 
institution.  Jesus  cries  again  and  again :  "Say  not, 
lo  here,  nor  lo  there,  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you."  All  the  illustrations  of  the  Kingdom 
have  to  do  with  inward  dispositions  of  soul,  rather 
than  with  outward  forms  of  government  and  verbal 
expression  of  doctrine.  The  Kingdom  of  God  was 
to  prevail  through  the  glad  acceptance  of  the  sov- 
ereignty of  God  by  the  children  of  the  Kingdom  in 
their  own  hearts  and  over  their  own  lives.  The 
Kingdom  of  God  was  to  come  by  the  simple  mani- 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    65 

festation  of  its  power  and  life  in  the  world.  It 
was  to  grow  from  the  seed  within  the  heart,  and  be- 
come a  tree  of  life,  yielding  its  fruit  after  its  kind, 
whose  seed  was  in  itself;  it  was  to  drive  out  the 
Kingdoms  of  this  world  as  light  drives  away  dark- 
ness, and  as  heat  dissipates  cold.  Jesus  was  a  pure 
idealist,  and  His  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  an  ideal  conception. 

At  the  beginning  of  His  ministry  Jesus  was  all 
aglow  with  enthusiasm.  He  expected  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  which  He  preached  would  be  accepted 
by  His  own  people  with  joyful  acclaim.  He  judged 
others  by  Himself.  To  Him  the  Kingdom  of  God 
was  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world.  It  was  to  love 
the  Lord  His  God  with  all  his  heart  and  soul  and 
mind  and  strength,  and  to  love  his  neighbor  as  him- 
self. To  Him  righteousness  was  the  supreme  good, 
and  pure  love  the  supreme  motive,  of  life.  Let  ab- 
solute righteousness  be  the  end  for  which  man  lives, 
and  pure  love  the  motive  of  all  his  actions,  and  the 
Kingdom  of  God  is  here,  for  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  righteousness  and  holiness,  perfect  justice  and 
burning  love. 

There  is  nothing  more  pathetic  in  human  history 
than  the  sublime  confidence  with  which  the  Prophet 
REL.  &  POL.— 5 


66  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

of  Galilee  set  forth  these  ideal  truths  to  the  men  of 
his  generation.  To  Him  they  were  axioms, — the 
self-evident  truths  of  the  moral  life.  Their  rejection 
by  the  leaders  of  His  people  filled  Him  with  as- 
tonishment, indignation,  and  anger.  Jesus  had  no 
patience  with  the  coldness,  the  blindness,  the  stupid- 
ity, the  wickedness  of  the  men  who  professing  to 
teach  the  way  of  God,  would  not  see  that  the  only 
way  was  the  way  of  truth,  of  righteousness,  and 
holiness.  Finding  that  He  could  make  no  impres- 
sion on  the  higher  classes  of  Jewish  society,  Jesus 
turned  to  the  common  people  for  support.  He  found 
the  mass  of  the  people  eager  to  listen  to  His  preach- 
ing, but  wholly  incapable  of  entering  into  the  spirit 
and  power  of  His  word.  Sadly  and  sternly  Jesus 
said  of  them  that  they  were  a  wicked  and  adulterous 
generation;  a  stony-hearted,  thorn-choked  genera- 
tion, in  which  the  seed  of  the  word  of  God  could  find 
no  root  nor  place  to  grow. 

But  for  all  this  Jesus  did  not  despair  of  the  King- 
dom of  God,  for  to  despair  of  the  Kingdom  was  to 
despair  of  God  Himself.  As  in  the  days  of  Elijah 
there  were  in  the  midst  of  the  national  apostacy  sev- 
en thousand  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal, 
and  who  had  not  kissed  him ;  so  in  the  days  of  Jesus 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    67 

there  were  a  few  whose  ears  were  open  and  whose 
hearts  obedient  to  the  word  of  God.  And  in  these 
few  would  the  Kingdom  of  God  be  established. 

Jesus  saw  very  soon  after  the  opening  of  His  min- 
istry that  the  preaching  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  was 
fraught  with  great  danger  to  Himself.  He  read  His 
own  doom  in  the  doom  of  the  prophets  that  were 
before  Him.  He  saw  in  His  own  oncoming  death 
the  culmination  of  the  wickedness  of  His  people. 
Their  rejection  of  Him  was  their  final  rejection  of 
God.  So  great  a  catastrophe  did  this  seem  to  Jesus 
that  He  expected  it  to  be  followed  at  once  by  an 
equally  great  catastrophe  in  nature.  The  rejection 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  His  people  was  to  Jesus 
the  end  of  the  world.  There  are  no  sayings  of  His 
better  authenticated  than  those  which  He  uttered 
concerning  the  coming  of  the  last  day  when  the  sun 
should  be  darkened,  and  the  moon  should  not  give 
her  light;  when  the  stars  should  fall  from  heaven, 
and  the  powers  of  heaven  should  be  shaken.*  And 
there  is  nothing  in  all  the  teaching  of  Jesus  that  so 
proves  His  faith  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  this  be- 
lief of  His,  that  the  existence  of  the  universe  was 


*St.  Matthew,  xxiv. :  29. 


68  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

dependent  upon  the  acceptance  of  His  conception 
of  that  Kingdom. 

And  the  church  was  simply  the  outward  expres- 
sion of  this  belief  of  Jesus.  The  church  does  not 
owe  its  existence  in  the  world  to  any  formal  plan 
of  Jesus,  nor  to  any  far-seeing  design  on  the  part 
of  His  immediate  disciples.  So  far  as  we  can  learn 
from  His  teaching,  Jesus  had  no  conception  of  an 
organic  body  at  all, — at  least  not  an  organic  body  of 
long  standing.  The  only  officers  that  He  appointed 
were  apostles  or  messengers, — men  who  were  to 
hurry  from  place  to  place  and  warn  the  people  of 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom ;  and  these  men  should 
not  have  passed  through  all  the  cities  of  Israel  be- 
fore that  Kingdom  should  come.  It  was  not  a  far- 
distant  event;  it  was  to  happen  in  the  lifetime  of 
men  then  living.  "Verily,  I  say  unto  you  that  this 
generation  shall  not  pass  till  all  these  things  be 
done."*  It  has  been  said  that  the  Christian  church 
rests  upon  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as  upon  a 
foundation.  But  this  is  not  true,  unless  we  include 
in  the  resurrection  the  belief  in  the  second  and  im- 
mediate coming  of  Jesus. 

The  Christian  church  had  its  historical  origin  in 


*St.  Mark,  xm. :  30. 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    69 

a  little  band  of  Jewish  men  and  women,  who  were 
drawn  together  by  the  common  belief  that  Jesus, 
who  had  died  on  the  cross,  was  not  in  Sheol  or 
Hades,  not  in  the  underground  region  with  the 
spirits  in  prison;  but  that  He  had  risen  from  the 
dead,  and  had  gone  up  into  heaven ;  and  that  He  was 
to  come  again  with  glory  to  judge  both  the  quick  and 
the  dead.  Without  this  expectation  of  the  imme- 
diate coming  of  Christ  the  church,  humanly  speak- 
ing, would  never  have  come  into  existence.  At  first 
the  church  was  purely  Jewish  in  character  and  mem- 
bership. When  the  need  of  organization  was  felt 
the  church  simply  adopted  the  organization  of  the 
Jewish  synagogue;  in  fact,  the  church  was  at  first 
only  a  Jewish  synagogue  or  congregation,  differing 
from  other  Jewish  synagogues  or  congregations  by 
the  belief  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  Messiah 
promised  by  the  prophets ;  that  in  Him  God  had  es- 
tablished His  Kingdom,  and  by  Him  God  would 
judge  the  world;  and  that  the  judgment  of  God 
was  nigh  at  hand,  even  at  the  doors. 

Membership  in  the  church  was  then  confined  to 
Jews  by  birth  or  Jews  by  adoption.  Only  the  cir- 
cumcised could  share  in  the  coming  salvation.  If  a 
man  of  another  nation  wished  to  become  a  member 


70  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

of  the  Christian  synagogue,  and  share  with  that 
synagogue  in  the  hope  and  expectation  of  the  com- 
ing of  Christ  in  His  Kingdom,  then  that  man  must 
become  a  circumcised  Jew,  and  keep  all  the  law  of 
Moses.  The  first  great  controversy  in  the  Christian 
church  raged  round  the  question  whether  salvation 
in  Christ  was  national  or  universal ;  whether  the 
essence  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ  was  ceremonial  or 
moral  and  spiritual.  Under  the  leadership  of  Paul 
and  other  like  minded  men,  universalism  won  the 
day,  and  membership  in  the  church  was  determined 
by  ethical,  not  by  national  or  ceremonial,  conditions. 
The  rapidity  of  the  progress  of  Christianity  was 
owing  to  the  fact  that  already  large  numbers  of  men 
and  women  were  looking  to  the  Jewish  religion  as 
the  one  way  to  escape  from  the  foulness  and  silliness 
of  the  prevailing  religions  of  the  day.  It  was  no 
longer  possible  for  decent  and  sensible  men  or 
women  to  believe  in  Jupiter,  the  adulterer,  or  in 
Venus,  the  courtesan,  or  even  in  Minerva,  or  any 
of  the  twelve  gods  of  Olympus.  The  Greek  Mythos 
was  dead  and  buried  beyond  the  hope  of  any  res- 
urrection. Still  less  could  men  embrace  the  vague 
mysticism,  and  practice  the  foul  rites  of  the  orgiastic 
religions  of  Syria,  Egypt,  and  the  East.  Everywhere 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    71 

men  were  looking  to  Judaism  as  a  possible 
solution  of  the  religious  problem  for  mankind.  The 
stern  monotheism  of  the  Jew ;  the  teachings  of  the 
Jewish  prophets,  which  were  the  common  property 
ot  the  world,  declaring  that  righteousness  and  holi- 
ness were  the  essential  attributes  of  God,  and  that 
by  the  righteous  and  holy  only  could  God  be  wor- 
shiped; all  these  considerations  drew  men  to  the 
religion  of  the  Jews  as  to  the  only  religion  which 
they  could  respect  and  reverence.  But,  while  they 
were  attracted  by  the  purity  of  Jehovah,*  they  were 
repelled  by  his  sternness.  He  was  the  God  of  the 
Jews  only.  He  hated  and  despised  and  condemned 
men  of  other  nations.  His  justice  was  partial,  and 
His  love  was  limited.  The  attitude  of  the  Jew  to  the 
Gentile  prevented  the  Jew  from  becoming  a  mission- 
ary nation.  You  can  never  convert  a  people  whom 
you  hate  and  despise. 

But  when  men  like  Paul,  Barnabas,  and  Silas 
came  to  a  world  that  was  hungering  and  thirsting 
for  righteousness,  and  taught  that  the  righteousness 
of  God  was  not  to  be  found  in  circumcision  or  un- 
circumcision,  but  in  faith  and  love;  that  Christ 
Jesus  was  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of 


The  Jehovah  of  the  prophets,  not  of  the  histories. 


72  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

God ;  that  in  Him  dwelt  all  the  fullness  of  the  God- 
head bodily ;  that  His  unblemished  character  and  un- 
tiring service  manifested  the  true  life  of  man,  the 
only  life  acceptable  to  God, — then  the  people  heard 
them  gladly,  and  the  new  religion  spread  from  heart 
to  heart  as  fire  spreads  when  driven  by  the  wind. 

The  first  effect  of  the  preaching  of  Jesus  in  the 
Greek  and  Roman  world  was  the  moral  renovation 
of  that  world.  As  soon  as  men  heard  of  Jesus  and 
began  to  worship  Him  that  worship  purified  the 
heart.  Expecting  every  day  that  Jesus  would  come 
with  all  His  holy  angels,  they  were  anxious  lest 
they  should  not  be  ready  on  the  day  of  His  coming. 
It  is  difficult  for  us  to  exaggerate  the  influence  which 
the  belief  in  the  immediate  coming  of  Christ  had  on 
the  first  generation  of  Christians,  in  the  Roman,  as 
well  as  in  the  Jewish,  world.  It  came  as  a  great 
hope  and  an  awful  fear.  If  Christ  came  and  found 
them  ready  they  would  hear  His  voice,  stand  at  His 
right  hand,  and  enter  into  His  joy ;  if  they  were  not 
ready  then  they  would  hear  not  the  voice  of  the 
Saviour,  but  of  the  judge  saying:  "Depart  from 
me  ye  cursed  into  the  fire  prepared  for  the  devil  and 
his  angels;"  and  they  would  be  shut  out  from  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.  73 

It  is  hard,  I  say,  for  us  to  comprehend  this  faith 
of  the  primitive  believer.  It  was  naive  and  child- 
like :  the  Christian  waited  for  Christ  as  a  child  waits 
for  its  mother  in  the  dark.  And  the  hoping  and  the 
fearing  kept  the  heart  from  sinning,  and  a  desire 
for  that  holiness  without  which  no  man  can  see  the 
Lord  became  an  overmastering  passion,  leading  men 
to  even  wild  extremes  of  asceticism.  Christianity, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  a  reaction  from  the  prevailing 
religion  of  the  world,  and  rushed  from  the  extreme 
of  sensuality  to  the  extreme  of  self -mortification. 
Marriage  was  despised,  and  men  ran  away  from 
the  world  to  macerate  themselves  in  the  desert, 
to  fast  and  weep  and  pray,  crying  day  and  night : 
"Have  mercy,  Lord,  and  take  away  my  sin." 

The  preaching  of  Christ  not  only  resulted  in  this 
moral  reformation,  but,  as  a  further  consequence, 
brought  about,  also,  a  social  reorganization. 

The  Roman  world  was  in  a  state  of  social  anarchy 
in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era.  The  im- 
perial government  had  broken  down  of  its  own 
weight ;  the  old  Roman  families,  both  patrician  and 
plebeian,  had  perished  in  the  civil  wars,  or  had  been 
destroyed  by  the  jealousy  of  the  Emperors.  Base- 
freedmen  like  Pallas  and  Narcissus  were  the  min- 


74  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

isters  to  imperial  vices,  and  the  instruments  of  im- 
perial cruelty.  All  dignity,  as  well  as  security,  had 
departed  from  human  life.  No  man  could  trust  his 
neighbor.  Women  were  betrayed  to  the  lust  of  the 
Emperor  by  their  own  husbands,  and  men  to  his 
anger  by  their  wives.  The  government  was  an  ir- 
responsible tyranny  resting  upon  the  military  power, 
and  the  Roman  was  no  longer  a  citizen;  he  was  a 
subject.  He  was  no  longer  governed  by  law,  but 
by  will.  There  was  nothing  between  him  and  de- 
struction but  the  caprice  of  a  vicious  man.  The 
whole  Roman  world  groaned  under  this  awful  deg- 
radation from  which  death  was  the  only  release. 

Into  this  world  of  social  disorganization  the  Chris- 
tian religion  came  with  its  doctrine  of  the  Brother- 
hood of  Man.  And  this  to  the  Christian  of  the  first 
age  was  no  mere  phrase ;  it  was  the  great  fact.  All 
men  were  equal  before  God,  for  all  were  His  chil- 
dren. He  was  the  father  of  the  slave,  as  well  as  the 
master;  the  Father  of  the  harlot,  as  well  as  the  ma- 
tron. The  Christian  church  was  simply  the  house- 
hold of  God,  in  which  His  children  lived,  and,  as 
the  love  of  the  mother  is  strongest  for  the  youngest 
and  weakest  of  her  children,  so  the  love  of  God 
went  out  to  those  of  His  family  who  needed  that  love 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    75 

the  most.  The  church  attracted  to  its  membership 
the  outcasts  of  Roman  society;  the  spiritually  halt 
and  lame  and  blind  came  flocking  in ;  the  sick  came 
for  healing,  and  the  weary  for  rest. 

The  Christian  communities  were  so  many  little 
democracies  scattered  throughout  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. Each  congregation  elected  its  own  officers  and 
regulated  its  own  affairs.  Within  the  church  a  man 
was  a  man,  having  the  rights  of  man.  The  demo- 
cratic spirit  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  came  to  life 
again  in  the  Christian  communities.  But  Christian 
democracy  was  not  simply  a  revival  of  ancient  de- 
mocracy ;  it  was  an  advance  on  that  democracy.  In 
ancient  times  the  man  existed  for  the  sake  of  the 
community.  In  primitive  Christianity  the  commun- 
ity existed  for  the  sake  of  the  man.  The  church  was 
for  the  people ;  not  the  people  for  the  church.  The 
church  was  an  organization  for  social  service;  not 
an  organization  for  self  aggrandizement.  Office  hold- 
ers in  the  church  were  taken  from  the  people  to 
serve  the  people.  To  the  Christian  church  we  owe 
that  conception  of  government  which  is  the  under- 
lying conception  of  modern  times,  and  which  found 
its  perfect  expression  in  the  immortal  words  of 
Lincoln:  "Government  of  the  people,  for  the  peo- 


76  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

pie,  by  the  people,"  describes  to  a  word  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Christian  communities  in  the  first  and 
second  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 

Between  these  democratic  churches  and  the  im- 
perial state  there  could  be  nothing  but  deadly  hos- 
tility. The  imperial  government  feared,  hated,  and 
despised  the  churches;  feared  them  because  it  had 
a  vague  misgiving  that  the  church  was  undermining 
the  foundations  of  the  Empire.  The  government 
hated  the  Christians  because  the  Christians  held 
aloof  from  all  political  affairs,  and  would  not  join 
in  the  worship  of  the  state.  And  finally,  the  rulers 
of  the  Empire  despised  the  church  because  the 
church  was  made  up  for  the  most  part  of  the  off- 
scouring  of  the  Roman  world.  A  society  of  slaves, 
and  thieves  and  harlots  was  beneath  the  contempt 
of  a  Roman  gentleman,  and  we  have  seen  in  the 
historian  Tacitus  an  example  of  the  attitude  of  the 
ordinary  Roman  to  the  Christian  of  his  day. 

And  if  the  Empire  feared,  hated,  and  despised 
the  church,  the  church  looked  upon  the  Empire  with 
horror.  It  saw  in  the  Empire  organized  rebellion 
against  God,  and  it  expected  every  day  to  see  the 
Empire  go  down  before  the  wrath  of  God.  In  the 
book  of  Revelation  you  can  read  the  judgment  of 
the  church  upon  the  Roman  world.  It  was  the  beast 


DEMOCRATIC  CHURCH  IN  IMPERIAL  STATE.    77 

risen  up  out  of  the  sea ;  it  was  the  mouth  speaking 
blasphemies;  it  was  Babylon  the  great,  the  mother 
of  harlots,  and  abominations  of  the  earth.  The  only 
hope  of  the  world  lay  in  the  destruction  of  the  Em- 
pire. And  the  Christian  expected  that  destruction 
by  an  immediate  act  of  God.  So  wicked  was  that 
old  world  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christian,  that  the 
earth  itself  and  the  sky  above  it  were  involved  in  the 
guilt  of  man.  Nothing  but  the  annihilation  of  the 
whole  present  order  could  cure  the  evil  of  the  times. 
So  the  Christian  looked  for  the  speedy  coming  of  a 
day  when  the  elements  should  melt  with  fervent 
heat,  and  the  heavens  and  the  earth  then  existing 
should  be  burnt  with  fire,  and  from  their  ashes 
should  rise  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  in  which 
righteousness  should  dwell.* 

We  know  that  the  Christian  was  mistaken  in  his 
belief  that  the  visible  universe  would  be  destroyed 
because  of  the  sin  of  man.  But  his  mistake  was  an 
illusion,  not  a  delusion.  That  old  world  was  perish- 
ing, burning  itself  up  in  the  fires  of  its  own  wicked- 
ness; and  out  of  its  ashes  a  new  world  was  rising. 
The  Christian  church  was  itself  the  new  heaven  and 
the  new  earth,  in  which  dwelleth  righteousness. 


*II.  Peter,  in.:  10,  n. 


Jesus'  Method  of  Government. 

In  the  year  130  of  the  Christian  era  the  Jewish 
people  throughout  the  world  were  thrown  into  a 
state  of  wild  excitement  by  the  glad  tidings  that 
the  long-expected  Messiah  was  come  at  last.  He 
had  unfolded  the  standard  of  Jehovah  over  the  ruins 
of  Jerusalem,  and  the  Jews  were  gathering  around 
that  standard  by  the  tens  of  thousands.  The  news 
of  the  coming  of  Messiah  found  the  more  eager  ac- 
ceptance because  the  affairs  of  the  Jews  were  in  a 
desperate  condition.  The  prophecy  of  Jesus  on  the 
hill  of  Olivet,  which  He  spake  against  Jerusalem, 
had  been  literally  fulfilled.  Looking  down  on  the 
city,  He  is  reported  to  have  said:  "For  the  days 
shall  come  upon  thee  when  thine  enemies  shall  cast 
up  a  bank  about  thee,  and  compass  thee  round, 
and  keep  thee  in  on  every  side,  and  shall  dash 
thee  to  the  ground,  and  thy  children  within 
thee;  and  they  shall  not  leave  in  thee  one 


78 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          79 

stone  upon  another,  because  thou  knowest  not 
the  time  of  thy  visitation."*  These  words  so  ex- 
actly describe  the  condition  of  Jerusalem,  in  the  year 
70,  after  the  siege  by  Titus,  that  one  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  words  of  the  evangelist,  ascribed  to 
Jesus,  which  were  written  after  the  fall  of  Jerusa- 
lem, were  colored  by  the  event  itself.  Jesus  foresaw 
the  doom  of  the  city,  and  wept  over  it,  but  it  is  not 
likely  that  He  foresaw  that  doom  in  all  its  particu- 
lars and  horrors.  The  Jewish  wars,  waged  at  the 
end  of  the  sixth  decade  of  the  first  century  were 
among  the  most  frightful  in  the  history  of  human 
warfare.  The  Jews  were  inspired  with  religious  en- 
thusiasm, and  fought  with  the  desperateness  of  fana- 
tics. Every  hill  in  Judea  and  Galilee  became  a  fort- 
ress ;  every  valley,  a  battle  field ;  city  after  city  was 
taken  by  storm  and  sacked  by  the  Roman  soldiery. 
The  siege  of  Jerusalem  lasted  for  years,  and  was  at- 
tended with  horrors  that  disgrace  the  name  of  man. 
Every  abomination  conceivable  was  committed  with- 
in and  without  the  city.  Cannibalism,  rape,  and 
murder  were  among  the  incidents  of  that  siege. 
When  the  city  was  taken  by  storm  the  Romans  had 
to  fight  their  way  from  house  to  house,  and  from 


*St.  Luke,  xix. :  43,  44,    R.  V. 


8o  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

street  to  street.  The  final  calamity  was  the  burning 
and  falling  of  the  Temple.  With  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem the  Jewish  people  were  utterly  prostrate  un- 
der the  power  of  the  Roman.  According  to  the  esti- 
mate of  the  Jewish  historian  Josephus,  1,356,460 
Jews  were  killed  in  these  wars,  and  101,700  were 
carried  into  captivity.*  For  sixty  years  the  Jews 
waited  in  sullen  despair  for  God  to  avenge  their 
wrongs  and  to  give  them  back  their  holy  city  and 
the  land  of  their  fathers. 

At  the  end  of  the  sixty  years  the  word  was 
passed  from  lip  to  lip  that  the  day  of  vengeance 
had  come.  Akiba,  the  wisest  and  holiest  of  the  rab- 
bins, had  recognized  the  Messiah  of  God  in  a  Jewish 
adventurer  named  Coziba,  who  took  the  name  of 
Bar-Cochab,  The  Son  of  the  Star.  He  claimed  to 
be  the  star  prophesied  by  Balaam.  The  pretentions 
of  Bar-Cochab  were  admitted,  first  by  Akiba,  and 
then  by  the  other  Jewish  rabbins,  and  the  people 
at  large  followed  the  lead  of  the  elders,  and  all 
Israel  went  after  The  Son  of  the  Star.  Another  ter- 
rible war  followed.  More  than  a  million  Jews  lost 
their  lives  or  their  liberty.  The  whole  country  of 


*Milman,  History  of  the  Jews,  vol.  2,  p.  380.    Murray, 
1866. 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          81 

Galilee  and  Judea  was  so  wasted  that  it  has  not  re- 
covered to  this  day.  What  was  left  of  Jerusalem 
was  razed  to  the  ground.  By  order  of  the  Emperor, 
Hadrian,  the  plow  was  passed  over  the  site  of  the 
city,  and  it  was  sown  with  salt,  and  a  new  city,  dedi- 
cated to  Jupiter,  was  built  on  an  adjoining  hill.  From 
that  day  to  this  the  Jews  have  been  a  people  without 
a  country;  wandering  as  strangers  and  pilgrims 
from  land  to  land.  Since  the  failure  of  Bar-Cochab 
no  one  claiming  to  be  Messiah  has  risen  up  in  Israel. 
This  brief  account  of  the  messiahship  of  Coziba 
is  of  value  to  us  in  these  lectures  because  it  enables 
us  to  compare  his  messiahship  with  the  messiahship 
of  Jesus.  In  these  two  histories,  the  history  of 
Jesus  and  the  history  of  Bar-Cochab,  the  contrast 
is  perfect.  Two  human  characters  embodying  two 
distinct  conceptions  of  human  government  stand 
over  against  each  other  in  the  white  light  of  history, 
— the  one  painted  in  the  dark  hues  of  the  despair,  the 
other  in  the  glowing  colors  of  hope;  the  one  the 
cause  of  measureless  misery,  the  other  of  infinite  hap- 
piness ;  the  one  an  awful  failure,  the  other  a  marvel- 
ous success.  I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  the 
greater  number  of  those  who  hear  these  words  have, 
never  even  heard  the  name  of  Coziba,  called  Bar- 
REL.  &  POL.— 6 


82  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Cochab.  That  name  is  known  only  to  careful  stu- 
dents of  history.  Bar-Cochab  shot  like  a  falling 
star  through  the  sky  of  the  Jewish-Roman  world, 
followed  by  a  trail  of  baleful  light,  and  then  went 
out  into  utter  darkness,  and  his  name  has  long  since 
perished  from  the  memory  of  man. 

But  who  has  not  heard  the  name  of  Jesus.  To- 
day* men  and  women  the  world  over  are  celebrat- 
ing his  birthday,  children  are  singing,  bells  are  ring- 
ing, lights  are  burning, — all  for  joy  because  Jesus 
was  born.  Everywhere  men  are  asking,  What  did 
Jesus  do?  What  did  Jesus  say?  What  did  Jesus 
mean? — and  they  profess  to  order  their  lives,  in 
thought  and  word  and  deed,  in  obedience  to  the  word 
of  Jesus,  and  in  submission  to  His  will.  There  is 
no  conqueror  in  history  who  can  compare  with  Jesus 
in  the  extent  and  duration  of  His  conquest.  He  has 
made  the  little  hill  tribe  of  Judah  the  master  people 
of  the  world;  because  of  Jesus  the  folklore  of  the 
Hebrew  has  become  the  sacred  history  of  the  west- 
ern world,  and  the  heroes  of  Israel,  the  heroes  of 
mankind.  Jesus  to-day  has  the  leadership  of  man, 
and  human  evolution  must  follow  the  lines  laid  down 
by  the  life  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth. 


*Lecture  delivered  Christmas  night. 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          83 

Now,  if  we  look  for  the  reason  of  the  awful  fail- 
ure of  Bar-Cochab,  and  the  marvelous  success  of 
Jesus,  we  will  not  find  that  reason  in  what  is  called 
the  supernatural.  Jesus  did  not  succeed  because 
he  was  born  of  a  virgin,  or  because  He  was  reported 
to  have  risen  bodily  from  the  dead.  These  legends 
concerning  Him  are  the  result,  not  the  cause,  of  the 
marvelous  success  of  the  man.  These  stories  were 
told  of  Him  only  because  the  simple  folk  could  in 
no  other  way  adequately  express  their  conception 
of  the  greatness  of  Jesus.  Only  a  virgin  born  could 
be  as  pure  as  Jesus.  Only  a  Son  of  God  could  be  as 
great  as  Jesus.  Only  a  life  more  powerful  than 
death  could  have  the  strength  of  Jesus.  The  creeds 
of  Christendom  are  of  value,  not  as  historical  state- 
ments, for  the  primitive  and  mediaeval  Christian 
had  no  historical  sense,  but  they  are  of  immense 
value  as  attempts  on  the  part  of  ordinary  men  to 
measure  the  greatest  personality  ever  born  into  the 
world.  If  we  look  for  the  secret  of  the  success  of 
Jesus  and  of  the  failure  of  Bar-Cochab,  we  shall 
find  that  Bar-Cochab  was  ignorant  of  the  law  that 
governs  all  real  conquests  in  human  history,  and 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  first  great  moralist 


84  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

to  discover  that  law,  to  give  it  formal  expression, 
and  to  apply  it  to  human  life. 

Count  Leon  Tolstoy*  tells  us  that  he  was  once 
reading  the  teachings  of  Jesus  to  a  wise  man  from 
the  east.  The  eastern  sage,  as  he  heard  them, 
claimed  one  after  another  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  as 
original  among  his  own  people.  But  at  last  there 
was  a  saying  of  Jesus  which  the  eastern  did  not 
claim,  and  which  he  admitted  to  be  original  with 
the  Prophet  of  Nazareth.  This  original  contribu- 
tion of  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth  to  the  moral  wis- 
dom of  the  world  the  eastern  sage  found  in  the 
words,  "Resist  not  evil." 

This  wise  man  displayed  all  the  acumen  of  his 
race  when  he  fixed  on  these  words  as  the  words 
per  se  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  for  they  are  the  key 
to  his  gospel  and  to  the  secret  of  his  success  in  the 
world. 

Jesus  enunciated  this  great  moral  discovery  in  the 
earlier  and  calmer  years  of  his  ministry.  It  was  one 
of  those  truths  of  God  which  he  saw  with  that  clear- 
ness of  vision  which  makes  his  words  to  be,  not  so 
much  mere  human  wisdom,  as  divine  revelation. 
This  saying  is  the  very  keystone  in  the  arch  of  that 


*Quoted  from  memory. 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          85 

new  law  which  Jesus  proclaimed,  and  by  which  he 
annulled  the  old  law  of  Moses,  the  Jewish  lawgiver. 
He  cried:  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said 
an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth;  but  I 
say  unto  you  resist  not  him  that  is  evil ;  but 
whosoever  will  smite  thee  on  the  right  cheek  turn 
to  him  the  other  also."* 

Now,  no  words  of  Jesus  have  been  such  a  stumb- 
ling block  to  modern  Christians  as  these  words ; 
they  cannot  believe  that  Jesus  meant  just  what  he 
said.  They  reckon  this  among  the  hyperbole  of 
the  Master;  as  if  by  this  exaggeration  He  would 
call  attention  to  the  necessity  of  moderation  in  the 
use  of  physical  force.  We  are  not  to  resent  all  inju- 
ries, but  only  such  injuries  as  seem  to  us  excessive 
and  to  call  for  retaliation.  But  the  words  of  Jesus 
will  not  bear  this  explanation.  They  mean  what 
they  say,  or  they  mean  nothing;  and,  if  they  mean 
nothing,  then  the  Man  who  uttered  them  is  guilty 
of  solemnly  affirming  foolish  and  dangerous  non- 
sense ;  and  such  a  man  has  no  right  to  the  admiration 
and  leadership  of  men.  To  call  Him  Lord!  Lord! 
and  at  the  same  time  to  despise  the  things  that  He 


*St.  Matthew,  v. :  38. 


86  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

says,  is  to  be  guilty  of  folly  far  more  foolish  than 
the  saying  we  deride. 

This  law  is  not,  as  some  may  suppose,  the  law 
of  passive  obedience,  bidding  us  yield  a  ready  sub- 
mission to  evil  in  the  world.  It  is  not  a  cowardly 
surrender  to  unrighteousness,  a  fearful  cringing  to 
wickedness  in  high  places.  It  is  not  the  teaching 
of  a  craven,  who  sells  his  soul  for  his  safety.  If 
such  were  the  meaning  of  the  words  of  Jesus  we 
might  well  reject  them  as  immoral  and  destructive 
of  the  highest  interests  of  mankind.  The  doctrine 
of  Jesus  is  not  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience; 
it  is  the  doctrine  of  passive  resistance.  And  it  is 
this  doctrine  of  passive  resistance  that  is  the  great 
original  doctrine  that  Jesus  has  contributed  to  moral 
science.  We  can  best  see  the  meaning  of  this  say- 
ing if  we  interpret  it  by  the  life  of  Jesus  Himself. 
Surely  no  one  can  accuse  Jesus  of  timidity.  He  was 
not  afraid  to  arraign  the  chief  priests  and  rulers 
of  His  people  at  the  bar  of  divine  justice;  in  His 
short  life  He  made  more  enemies  than  most  men 
dare  make  in  a  long  lifetime.  And  these  enemies 
were  bitter  in  their  hatred, — so  bitter  that  nothing 
but  the  destruction  of  Jesus  would  satisfy  them. 
And  Jesus  knew  the  danger  of  His  course  of  action. 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          87 

He  was  not  as  a  child  playing  with  matches  in  a 
powder  magazine,  ignorant  of  his  peril.  He  knew 
that  He  could  escape  only  by  submission,  and  He 
would  not  submit  for  one  single  instant.  His  whole 
life  was  not  a  life  of  obedience,  but  of  rebellion 
against  existing  conditions  and  established  authori- 
ties. 

Jesus  was  in  opposition  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  His  days.  And  it  is  with  His  method  of  war- 
fare that  this  saying,  "Resist  not  evil,"  has  to  do — 
do  not  resist  evil  with  evil.  Do  not  resist  physical 
force  with  physical  force.  Do  not  meet  calumny 
with  calumny,  nor  vituperation  with  vituperation. 
Be  not  overcome  of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with 
good,  meet  calumny  with  silence  and  vituperation 
with  kind  words.  Jesus  would  carry  no  sword  or 
spear;  He  wore  no  helmet,  nor  breastplate;  there 
were  no  greaves  of  brass  upon  His  legs ;  but,  for  all 
that,  Jesus  was  armed  and  protected.  He  was 
armed  with  the  only  weapons  that  are  effectual  for 
the  settlement  of  disputes  among  men.  He  used 
the  only  method  of  warfare  by  which  real  conquests 
can  be  made.  Jesus  was  wise  enough  to  see  that 
physical  force  can  only  decide  physical  questions. 
He  knew  as  well  as  Bonaparte  that  God  is  always 


88  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

on  the  side  of  the  strongest  battalions  and  the  more 
skilful  commander.  A  battle  never  decides  any  other 
matter  except  the  relative  strength  and  handling  of 
the  different  armies.  No  moral  issue  is  or  can  be 
settled  by  an  appeal  to  the  god  of  battles,  for  the 
god  of  battles  knows  no  more  of  morality  than  the 
wind  at  sea  or  the  ice  blast  on  the  mountain,  which 
drowns  and  freezes  indifferently  the  saint  and  the 
sinner.  The  questions  which  physical  resistance 
could  decide  were  not  of  interest  to  Jesus.  He  was 
not  anxious  to  find  out  whether  the  Jew  was  a  bet- 
ter fighter  than  the  Roman,  but  only  if  he  was  a 
better  man.  And  the  method  of  Jesus  was  to  pit  the 
manhood  of  the  Jew  against  the  brutality  of  the 
Roman.  He,  the  Jew,  stood  up  alone  against  the 
whole  Roman  power,  and  dared  it  to  do  its  worst, 
and  it  did  its  worst;  but  it  could  not  hurt  Jesus. 
He  was  stronger  than  Caesar.  Caesar  could  kill  the 
body  of  Jesus,  but  after  that  there  was  nothing  more 
that  Caesar  could  do;  but  when  the  Roman  had 
killed  Him,  then  Jesus  could  and  did  undermine  the 
Empire,  change  institutions,  and  alter  the  courses 
of  history.  The  disbelief  of  the  ordinary  man  in 
the  saying  of  Jesus  arises  from  his  disbelief  in  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life.  If  a  man  believes  that  aft- 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          89 

er  he  is  dead  he  can  do  nothing,  why,  of  course,  he 
will  look  upon  death  as  the  greatest  calamity,  and 
will  seek  to  defend  his  physical  life  with  all  the 
forces  at  his  command.  But  if  a  man  be  convinced 
that  his  real  life  lies  in  his  soul,  that  physical  death 
is  simply  an  incident,  and  that  by  physical  death  he 
may  acquire  the  greater  influence  and  more  exten- 
sive power, — then  physical  death  will  be  chosen  as 
the  way  to  victory.  Jesus  based  His  doctrine  of  re- 
sist not  evil  upon  the  further  doctrine  that  evil 
is  limited  in  its  power  and  operation.  It  can  do  so 
much  and  no  more.  And  the  surest,  and,  indeed, 
the  only,  way  to  defeat  evil  is  to  let  it  alone ;  it  will 
rage  and  spend  itself,  and  then  it  will  be  over  and 
done  with.  Jesus's  method  of  warfare  is  to  fight 
evil,  not  by  active  resistance,  but  by  passive  endur- 
ance. He  was  ready,  not  to  kill,  but,  if  need  were, 
to  be  killed.  And  the  Christian  world  has,  in  doc- 
trine, admitted  the  wisdom  of  the  method  of  Jesus 
by  finding  in  His  death  the  salvation  of  mankind. 
It  is  true  that  the  theologians  have  obscured  the 
meaning  of  the  death  of  Jesus  by  asserting  that  He 
died  to  satisfy  the  justice — that  is,  the  vengeance — 
of  God;  but  this  whole  idea  of  taking  vengeance  is 
utterly  foreign  to  the  teaching  of  the  Master.  To 


90  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

visit  evil  with  evil  is  the  one  thing  that  He  says 
should  never  be  done  either  by  gods  or  men.  His 
death  did  not  satisfy  the  vengeance  of  God,  for  there 
was  no  god  of  vengeance  to  be  satisfied.  But  His 
death  did  shame  the  wickedness  of  man.  It  showed 
the  brute  in  all  his  brutality,  the  hypocrite  in  all  his 
hypocrisy,  the  traitor  in  his  treachery,  and  the  cow- 
ard in  his  cowardice.  The  death  of  Jesus  was  a 
manifestation  of  the  power  of  the  human  soul,  pure 
and  simple,  to  withstand  all  the  forces  that  can  be 
brought  against  it.  A  man's  soul  is  his  impregnable 
fortress.  Let  him  contain  himself  in  that,  and  he  is 
secure  against  all  adversaries. 

Jesus's  method  of  passive  resistance  is  by  far  the 
most  economical  of  life  and  treasure  of  any  mode  of 
warfare  that  man  can  adopt.  We  have  seen  how 
the  active  resistance  of  the  Jews  to  the  Roman  power 
lead  to  the  death  of  millions  and  to  the  misery  of 
millions  more.  While  the  Jews  were  resisting  ac- 
tively, the  Christians  were  resisting  passively.  The 
wickedness  of  the  Roman  power  was  far  more  hate- 
ful to  the  Christian  than  to  the  Jew.  The  Chris- 
tian would  not  recognize  the  validity  of  that  power 
by  so  much  as  casting  a  grain  of  incense  upon  an 
altar.  But  the  Christian  did  not  wish  to  kill  the 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          gi 

Roman ;  he  wished  to  convert  him ;  and  so  he  mani- 
fested his  hostility  to  the  Roman  system,  not  by 
fighting  the  Roman,  but  by  preaching  to  the  Roman 
that  his  system  was  evil,  and,  if  he  wished  to  es- 
cape from  that  evil,  he  must  turn  from  the  worship 
of  Caesar  to  the  worship  of  Christ.  And  when  the 
Roman  was  angry  with  him  the  Christian  suffered 
the  full  consequence  of  that  anger,  and  in  so  suffer- 
ing revealed  to  the  Roman  a  moral  greatness  which 
turned  the  anger  of  the  Roman  into  admiration, 
love,  and  worship.  And  the  loss  of  life  in  this  war- 
fare of  the  Christian  against  the  Roman  was  as 
nothing  when  compared  with  the  loss  of  the  Jews. 
More  Jewish  lives  were  lost  in  the  one  year  of  Co- 
ziba's  insurrection,  than  Christian  lives  were  lost 
in  the  three  centuries  of  Christian  persecution.  And 
there  was  this  radical  difference, — every  Jew  who 
died  in  arms  made  an  enemy  for  the  Jews.  Every 
Christian  who  died  unarmed  made  a  friend  for  the 
Christians.  So  that  it  became  a  saying  that  the 
blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  church.  The 
history  of  Jesus  and  the  history  of  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity  give  experimental  proof  of 
the  soundness  of  His  doctrine. 

The  method  of  Jesus  is  not  only  economical,  but 


92  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

it  is  effective.  If  you  wish  to  subdue  a  man  to  your 
will  so  that  he  may  be  your  slave,  you  cannot  do 
it  by  killing  him,  for  a  dead  man  is  no  man's  serv- 
ant. You  cannot  do  it  by  chaining  him,  for  a  man 
in  chains  has  all  he  can  do  to  carry  his  shackles. 
The  only  way  to  subdue  a  man  is  to  win  him.  If 
you  want  him  for  your  very  own  you  must  conquer 
something  beside  his  hands  and  his  feet;  you  must 
storm  the  citadel  of  his  heart,  and,  instead  of  mak- 
ing him  fear  to  disobey,  you  must  make  him  love  to 
obey.  Now  you  can  never  make  a  dog  love  you  by 
beating  him ;  still  less  a  man.  In  all  God's  universe 
it  is  the  law  that  like  begets  like, — hate  breeds 
hatred,  and  loving  wins  love.  And  Jesus,  in  the 
sublimity  of  His  spiritual  genius,  gave  expression 
by  word  and  life  to  these  very  simple  axiomatic 
principles,  and  by  so  doing  put  the  world  in  the 
way  of  salvation. 

As  long  as  men  hate  one  another  and  kill  one  an- 
other, so  long  will  this  world  be  a  hell,  and  those 
who  live  in  it,  will  not  live  at  all,  but  all  their  days 
will  be  misery  and  death. 

I  do  not  think  anyone  can  look  at  the  present 
condition  of  so-called  Christendom  without  a  feel- 
ing of  pity  for  the  foolishness  of  man  and  of  com- 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          93 

passion  for  what  must  be  the  shame  of  Jesus  at 
the  conduct  of  His  so-called  followers.  Here  is  all 
Christendom  one  vast  armed  camp,  spending  mil- 
lions of  lives  and  wasting  billions  of  treasure  getting 
ready  to  resist  evil.  And  lo  and  behold  all  this  vast 
waste  of  life  and  treasure  is  spent  to  oppose  a  phan- 
tom. The  only  evil  which  the  nations  have  to  re- 
sist is  the  evil  which  these  armaments  themselves 
create.  If  the  nations  were  disarmed  the  nations 
would  have  nothing  to  fear.  If  any  country  in  the 
world  to-day  were  to  disarm,  and  to  announce  to 
the  world  that  it  did  so  in  the  cause  of  peace  that, 
respecting  the  rights  of  others,  it  would  fear  injury 
from  none,  what  do  you  suppose  would  happen  to 
that  country.  Its  instant  destruction  by  its  more 
warlike  neighbors?  Not  at  all.  That  nation,  es- 
pecially if  it  were  a  strong  nation,  would  instantly 
attract  to  itself  the  whole  peace  sentiment  of  the 
world.  It  would  be  like  the  monastery  in  the  mid- 
dle ages ;  it  would  gather  into  itself  the  moral  force 
of  mankind,  and,  like  the  monastery,  it  would  in 
the  end  rule  the  world.  For  the  monastery  as  well 
as  the  primitive  church  interpreted  the  words  of 
Jesus  literally.  After  the  fall  of  the  western  em- 
pire in  the  fifth  century  Europe  was  overrun  by 


94  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Barbarians  from  the  north,  whose  two  occupations 
were  drinking  and  fighting.  Every  tribe  was  at  war 
with  its  neighbor;  every  man's  hand  was  against 
every  man.  In  those  days  men  lived  in  castles  and 
wore  chain  armor.  But  in  the  midst  of  this  univer- 
sal warfare  there  were  certain  men  who  did  not  re- 
sist evil.  They  built  their  homes  in  the  forest.  Their 
gates  were  open  day  and  night  to  welcome  the 
stranger.  If  their  enemy  hungered,  they  fed  him. 
If  he  thirsted,  they  gave  him  drink.  If  they  were 
killed,  they  died  praying  for  their  murderers.  They 
were  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves,  and  their  de- 
struction seemed  inevitable.  But  what  happened? 
Why,  the  monastery  became  the  center  of  order; 
the  nursery  of  civilization  in  Europe.  Out  of  the 
monastery  came  the  rulers  of  Europe.  Hildebrand, 
the  monk,  was  more  powerful  than  Henry,  the  war 
lord.  All  the  great  warriors  of  the  middle  age  were 
the  servants  of  the  monks.  Charlemagne  received 
his  Empire  from  the  monastic  church.  Frederick 
Barborossa  humbled  himself  at  the  feet  of  the 
monks,  and  Henry  IV.  of  Germany  stood  three  days, 
barefooted  in  the  snow,  humbly  suing  for  the  pardon 
of  a  monk.  If  there  were  no  other  instance  in  his- 
tory, the  monastery  would  settle  forever  the  ques- 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          95 

tion  as  to  the  relative  potency  of  physical  and  moral 
force.     The  moral  is  always  the  greater. 

The  ancient  law  of  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  is  still  in  a  large  measure  the  law  of 
human  life  as  interpreted  by  the  state.  A  man  steals 
a  loaf  of  bread  to  satisfy  his  hunger,  and  the  state 
steals  his  liberty  to  satisfy  its  vengeance.  A  man 
kills  another  man  in  the  heat  of  passion,  or  under 
great  temptation,  and  the  state  kills  him  in  cold 
blood,  and  without  any  temptation  at  all.  And  it 
is  commonly  believed  that  the  doctrine,  "Resist  not 
evil,"  if  applied  to  social  life,  would  throw  society 
back  into  anarchy.  And  yet  criminology  teaches  us 
that  severity  toward  criminals  simply  increases 
crime.  In  the  good  old  times  when  robbers  were 
broken  on  the  wheel,  and  thieves  were  burned  at 
the  stake,  robbers  thronged  every  forest  and  beset 
every  highway,  while  thieves  and  cut-throats  lurked 
in  every  lane  and  alley  of  the  city.  As  severity 
toward  crime  has  lessened,  the  number  of  criminals 
and  crimes  has  decreased.  If  we  wish  to  put  an 
end  to  crime  we  must  in  some  way  put  an  end  to 
criminals.  But  you  do  not  put  an  end  to  criminals 
by  putting  them  in  prison  or  by  killing  them.  If 
you  put  a  criminal  in  prison,  you  make  him  more  of 


96  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

a  criminal  than  ever.  Prisons  are  schools  of  crime, 
from  which  men  graduate  after  a  longer  or  shorter 
period  of  education  to  prey  upon  society.  Nor  do 
you  put  an  end  to  a  criminal  by  killing  him.  A  dead 
criminal  is  still  a  criminal.  When  the  state  solemnly 
executes  a  man  it  gives  eternal  significance  to  his 
crime.  It  can  never  be  changed,  but  must  remain 
forever  a  blot  on  human  history.  The  vengeance 
of  the  state  falls  on  innocent  and  guilty  alike.  The 
father  and  the  mother,  the  wife  and  the  children, 
must  bear  the  shame  of  the  crime  forever.  The 
only  way  to  put  an  end  to  a  criminal  is  to  make  him 
an  honest  man.  You  must  in  some  way  reach  his 
soul,  and  stir  within  that  soul  the  desire  to  do  good. 
And,  if  you  would  have  a  man  do  good  you  must 
be  good  to  him;  you  must  reach  his  soul  as  Dinah 
Morris  reached  the  poor  soul  of  Hetty  Sorel,  the 
child  murderer, — reached  it  not  by  accusation  and 
severity,  but  by  laying  her  cheek  against  the  cheek 
of  the  hardened  sinner  until  at  last  the  love  of  Dinah 
thawed  the  heart  of  Hetty.  So  that  heart  wept 
tears  of  penitence ;  and  Hetty  was  no  longer  a  crim- 
inal, but  a  sorrowful,  heart-broken  woman.  Victor 
Hugo  was  not  a  mere  romancer;  he  was  a  pro- 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          97 

found  psychologist;  when  he  told  the  story  of  the 
good  bishop  and  Jean  Val  Jean.  Resist  not  evil, 
is  the  maxim  of  the  good  bishop.  Jean  Val  Jean, 
the  convict  from  the  galleys,  abuses  the  holy  man's 
hospitality  by  stealing  his  silver  spoons.  He  is  ar- 
rested and  brought  back  to  the  Episcopal  residence. 
The  bishop  lies  and  says  to  the  officer  that  he  had 
given  the  spoons  to  the  man,  and  upbraids  Jean  Val 
Jean  because  he  had  forgotten  to  take  the  silver  can- 
dle sticks  as  well.  Does  this  act  of  the  bishop  make 
Jean  Val  Jean  more  or  less  a  criminal.  You  know 
the  story.  From  that  instant  the  soul  of  Jean  Val 
Jean  was  transformed.  He  became  so  great  that  the 
injustice  of  society  could  not  crush  him.  The  vic- 
tim of  that  injustice,  he  triumphed  over  it  by  the 
greatness  of  his  soul. 

If  society  were  to  practice  the  doctrine  of  Jesus, 
of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  of  Victor  Hugo,  we 
should  soon  have  no  need  for  our  jails  and  our 
gallows.  If  we  were  always  ready  to  forgive  the 
sinner,  we  should  have  no  need  for  further  pun- 
ishment— but  forgiveness  would  bring  him  to  peni- 
tence, and  penitence  to  reformation.* 


*Asylums,  not  prisons,  will  mark  the  next  stage  in  crimi- 
nal jurisprudence. 
REL.  &  POL.— 7 


98  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

To  practice  the  precept  of  Jesus  is  not  easy,  be- 
cause it  requires  the  love  of  Jesus  for  men,  and 
the  patience  of  Jesus  with  men.  Jesus's  love  for 
men  was  so  great  that  it  consumed  at  once  any  feel- 
ing of  resentment  against  them.  He  pitied  and 
prayed  for  His  murderers  in  the  moment  of  His  own 
agony  and  death.  Jesus's  patience  with  men  was  so 
unlimited  that  He  was  willing  to  wait  for  ages  if 
only  so  He  could  win  the  heart  of  man  to  His  way 
of  thinking  and  feeling.  Coziba,  called  Bar-Cochab, 
would  overthrow  the  Roman  power  in  a  day ;  Jesus 
worked  three  hundred  years  to  accomplish  the  same 
result.  Coziba  would  conquer  Rome  by  force  of 
arms;  Jesus  by  force  of  love.  Coziba  would  de- 
stroy; Jesus  would  assimilate.  Coziba's  work  was 
done  when  Coziba  died;  Jesus's  real  work  did  not 
begin  until  the  day  after  His  death.  Coziba  and  his 
tribe  are  men  of  the  past;  Jesus  is  the  man  of  the 
future.  Let  those  of  us  who  still  believe  in  Jesus 
take  heart.  Evolution  is  on  our  side.  Slowly,  but 
surely,  the  world  is  coming  round  to  Jesus's  way 
of  thinking.  Formerly  men  gloried  in  warfare ;  now 
they  apologize  for  it.  In  old  time  men  went  out 
to  kill  and  to  spoil  their  enemies ;  now  they  go  with 
battleship  and  army  to  civilize  them.  If  we  kill  the 


JESUS'  METHOD  OF  GOVERNMENT.          99 

Filipino  or  the  Boer,  we  do  it  only  for  their  good. 
And  we  are  more  or  less  ashamed  of  ourselves,  be- 
cause we  can  find  no  better  way  to  elevate  them  than 
the  way  of  violence  and  treachery.  We  are  ashamed 
of  our  slums,  of  our  jails  and  our  gibbets ;  and  with 
shame  will  come  sorrow,  and  with  sorrow  a  better 
mind ;  and  by  and  by  we  shall  agree  with  Jesus 
that  the  only  way  to  conquer  our  enemy  is  to  make 
him  our  friend ;  the  only  way  to  overcome  evil  is 
to  overcome  evil  with  good.  When  that  day  comes, 
as  it  surely  will,  then  we  shall  hear  again  the  angels 
singing,  "Peace  on  earth ;  good  will  toward  men." 

And,  if  we  choose,  that  day  can  come  to  us  to- 
night. To-night  we  can  be  Jesus  men;  men  who 
will  suffer  evil,  but  never  do  it. 


The   Imperialized   Church. 

On  the  27th  of  October  in  the  year  312  of  the 
Christian  era  Constantine,  son  of  Constantius  Chlor- 
us,  was  on  the  eve  of  a  battle  that  was  to  decide  the 
destinies  of  the  Roman  Empire.  His  enemy  was 
Maxentius,  a  rival  for  the  imperial  power,  who  held 
the  Malvian  bridge  and  barred  the  way  of  Constan- 
tine to  Rome.  Maxentius  was  a  believer  in  the  an- 
cient Roman  religion,  and  was  using  all  the  means 
prescribed  by  the  ancient  ritual  to  win  the  favor 
of  the  gods,  and  to  secure  their  aid  in  the  coming 
battle.  Constantine,  knowing  that  his  enemy  was 
thus  engaged,  was  greatly  disturbed  in  his  mind. 
He  knew  that  his  fate  and  the  fate  of  the  Roman 
world  was  to  be  decided  on  the  morrow,  "and,  be- 
ing convinced,"  says  the  historian  Eusebius,  "that 
he  needed  some  more  powerful  aid  than  his  military 
forces  could  afford  him,  on  account  of  the  wicked 
and  magical  enchantments  which  were  so  diligently 
practiced  by  the  tyrant,  Maxentius,  he  began  to 
seek  for  divine  assistance,  and  while  he  was  thus 


100 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  101 

praying  with  fervent  entreaty  a  most  marvelous  sign 
appeared  to  him  from  heaven,  the  account  of  which 
it  may  have  been  difficult  to  receive  with  credit  had 
it  been  related  by  any  other  person;  but,  since  the 
victorious  Emperor  himself  long  afterward  declared 
it  to  the  writer  of  this  history,  when  he  was  hon- 
ored with  his  acquaintance  and  society,  and  con- 
firmed it  with  an  oath,  who  could  hesitate  to  credit 
the  relation,  especially  since  the  testimony  of  after 
times  has  established  its  truth.  He  said  that  at  mid- 
day, when  the  sun  was  beginning  to  decline,  he  saw, 
with  his  own  eyes,  the  trophy  of  a  cross  of  light  in 
the  heavens  above  the  sun,  and  bearing  the  inscrip- 
tion, 'By  this  conquer.' 

At  this  sight  he  himself  was  struck  with  amaze- 
ment, and  his  whole  army  also,  which  happened  to 
be  following  him  on  some  expedition,  and  witnessed 
the  miracle.  He  said,  moreover,  that  he  doubted 
within  himself  what  the  import  of  this  apparition 
could  be;  and  while  he  continued  to  ponder  and  to 
reason  on  its  meaning,  night  imperceptibly  drew  on, 
and  in  his  sleep  the  Christ  of  God  appeared  to  him 
with  the  same  sign  which  he  had  seen  in  the  heav- 
ens, and  commanded  him  to  procure  a  standard 


102  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

made  in  the  likeness  of  that  sign,  and  to  use  it  as  a 
safeguard  in  all  engagements  against  his  enemies." 
Thus  in  courtly  phrase  does  the  historian  Eusebius 
tell  us  of  one  of  the  most  important  events  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  With  the  conversion  of  Con- 
stantine  the  revolution  was  consummated  by  which 
the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  world  was  carried 
from  the  worship  of  the  gods  of  nature,  to  the  wor- 
ship of  God  in  Christ.  That  Constantine  thought  he 
saw  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  the  sky  is  certain.  And 
it  is  also  a  matter  of  fact  that  he  was  obedient  to  his 
supposed  heavenly  vision.  He  made  a  standard  on 
which  he  placed  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and,  follow- 
ing this  standard,  he  not  only  defeated  Maxentius 
at  the  battle  of  Malvian  bridge,  but  by  an  unin- 
terrupted course  of  good  fortune  he  made  himself 
master  of  the  Roman  world  and  reunited  the  Em- 
pire in  his  own  person.  Immediately  after  the  bat- 
tle of  Malvian  bridge  Constantine  and  his  then 
eastern  colleague,  Licinius,  issued  the  famous  Edict 
of  Milan,*  granting  liberty  to  all  Romans  to  wor- 
ship, acording  to  the  dictates  of  their  reason  and 
conscience.  This  Edict  was  made  in  favor  of  the 
Christians,  and  its  effect  was  to  make  Christianity 


*Eusebius,  Ecclesiastical  History,  bk.  10,  chap.  v. 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  103 

the  religion  of  the  Empire.  Twelve  years  after  the 
Edict  of  Milan  Constantine,  then  sole  Emperor  of 
the  Roman  world,  presided  at  the  opening  of  a  great 
council  of  Christian  bishops  and  doctors  held  in  the 
city  of  Nicsea,  and  at  the  death  of  Constantine,  in 
337,  the  Christian  religion  was  firmly  established 
as  the  state  religion  of  the  Roman  world.  Then 
it  was  that  the  adherents  of  the  ancient  religions 
were  called  pagans,  from  the  word  "pagus"  which 
means  country;  for  only  rude  rustics  believed  any 
longer  in  the  gods  of  the  hills  and  the  groves. 

But  this  triumph  of  Christianity  was  not  an  un- 
qualified victory  for  the  religion  of  Jesus.  If  Je- 
sus did,  indeed,  inspire  Constantine  with  the  hope 
of  success  on  the  eve  of  his  battle  with  Maxentius, 
then  Jesus  in  heaven  must  have  utterly  forgotten  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  on  earth.  He  who  said,  "Resist 
not  evil,"  could  hardly  be  the  same  as  the  one  who 
said,  make  of  my  cross  a  standard,  and  by  means 
of  its  magic  power  go  out  and  conquer  your  ene- 
mies. The  moral  distance  between  the  saying  of 
Jesus  and  the  vision  of  Constantine  is  the  distance 
that  organized  Christianity  had  traveled  from  the 


i(H  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  to  the  conversion  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  by  the  cross.  In  those  three  hun- 
dred years  the  imperial  state  had  been  profoundly 
influenced  by  the  democratic  church,  and  the  church 
in  turn  had  been  influenced  and  modified  by  the  im- 
perial state. 

In  the  second  century,  immediately  after  the  fall 
of  Nero,  the  moral  reaction,  of  which  the  Christian 
church  was  the  embodiment,  made  itself  felt  in  ev- 
ery section  of  Roman  society,  and  in  every  depart- 
ment of  Roman  life.  The  state  still  looked  upon  the 
Christian  faith  as  a  deadly  superstition,  hostile  to 
the  life  of  the  Empire.  Yet  the  state  itself  was 
stirred  to  its  depths  by  that  doctrine  of  righteous- 
ness which  was  preached  by  Christian  apostles  in 
the  lanes  and  byways  of  every  city  in  the  Empire. 

The  fear  of  God  and  the  enthusiasm  for  humanity 
which  were  generated  in  the  church  kindled  a  fire 
that  spread  far  and  wide  throughout  the  Roman 
Empire.  Everywhere  men  began  to  bethink  them- 
selves, and  to  amend  their  lives.  Emperors  began 
to  use  their  power,  not  to  glut  their  own  lust  and 
cruelty,  but  to  promote  the  wellbeing  of  the  people. 
After  a  short  period  of  disorder  the  death  of 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  105 

Nero  was  followed  by  the  accession  of  Vespasian, 
a  rude  soldier,  but  a  just  man,  who  ruled  the  Empire 
with  wisdom  and  moderation  for  the  space  of  nine 
years,  and  was  succeeded  at  his  death,  in  the  year  79, 
by  his  son,  Titus,  the  conqueror  of  Jerusalem,  a  man 
greatly  beloved  by  the  army  and  the  people.  Titus 
reigned  only  twenty-six  months,  when  he  was  car- 
ried off  by  a  fever  that  was  then  devastating  the 
world.  In  the  person  of  his  brother,  Domitian, 
the  Roman  world  fell  once  more  into  the  hands  of 
a  madman  and  a  tyrant.  For  fifteen  years  Rome 
repeated,  in  the  reign  of  Domitian,  son  of  Vespasian, 
the  cruelty  and  licentiousness  of  the  reign  of  Nero. 
Gloomy,  superstitious,  and  cruel,  this  Emperor  sac- 
rificed the  leading  members  of  the  Senate  to  his  own 
fears,  and  terror  ruled  in  Rome  until  the  death  of 
Domitian,  who  was  murdered  by  his  attendants  in 
the  year  96. 

The  death  of  Domitian  was  followed  by  one  of 
the  happiest  periods,  not  only  in  the  history  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  but  also  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
"If,"  says  the  historian  Gibbon,  "a  man  were  called 
to  fix  the  period  in  the  history  of  the  world  during 
which  the  condition  of  the  human  race  was  most 


106  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

happy  and  prosperous,  he  would  without  hesitation 
name  that  which  elapsed  from  the  death  of  Domitian 
to  the  accession  of  Commodus.  The  vast  extent  of 
the  Roman  Empire  was  governed  by  absolute  power 
under  the  guidance  of  virtue  and  wisdom.  The 
armies  were  restrained  by  the  firm,  but  gentle,  hand 
of  four  successive  Emperors,  whose  characters  and 
authority  commanded  involuntary  respect."*  The 
Emperors  to  whom  the  historian  refers  in  this  pas- 
sage are  Trajan,  Hadrian,  Antoninus  Pius,  and 
Marcus  Aurelius.  On  the  death  of  Domitian,  Mar- 
cus Cocceius  Nerva  was  proclaimed  Emperor  by  the 
Pretorian  Guards  and  confirmed  by  the  Senate.  The 
new  Emperor  was  an  aged  senator  of  blameless  life, 
but  too  feeble  to  bear  the  cares  of  Empire.  Of 
this  no  one  was  more  conscious  than  Nerva  himself. 
With  the  approbation  of  the  Senate  and  people  the 
Emperor  adopted  as  his  son  and  successor  Trajan, 
a  Spaniard  distinguished  as  a  general  and  a  states- 
man. Trajan  shared  the  imperial  power  with  his 
father  during  the  lifetime  of  Nerva,  and  at  his 


*Decline   and   Fall   of  the  Roman   Empire,   E.   Gibbon, 
chaps,  in.,  iv. 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  107 

death  became  the  master  of  the  world.  Trajan  was 
renowned  no  less  for  administrative  ability  in  civil 
affairs,  than  he  was  for  martial  ambition  and  mili- 
tary success.  He  was  the  last  of  the  Romans  to 
extend  the  boundaries  of  the  Empire.  He  added 
Dacia,  beyond  the  Danube,  and  Arabia  Petra  to  the 
imperial  domain,  and  penetrated  with  his  armies  be- 
yond the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris.  He  died  at 
Selinus,  in  Cilicia,  as  he  was  returning  in  triumph 
to  Rome,  in  the  year  117,  after  a  glorious  reign  of 
nineteen  years.  The  relation  of  Trajan  to  the 
Christian  religion  was  that  of  a  wise  and  good  man 
who  was  troubled  by  the  presence  in  his  Empire  of 
a  people  who  stubbornly  refused  to  conform  to  an- 
cient customs  or  to  recognize  the  divine  authority  of 
the  government.  Trajan  used  every  effort  to  find 
out  what  the  new  religion  really  was  and  the  secret 
of  its  power  over  the  people.  He  instructed  his 
friend,  Pliny  the  Younger,  governor  of  Bithynia,  to 
examine  the  Christians  by  torture,  and  to  ascertain, 
if  he  could,  the  doctrines  which  they  taught  and  the 
nature  of  their  secret  rites.  On  the  evidence  thus 
obtained,  the  Roman  philosopher  "could  detect  noth- 
ing further  than  a  culpable  and  extravagant  super- 
stition. The  only  facts  he  could  discover  were,  that 


io8  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

they  had  a  custom  of  meeting  together  before  day- 
light and  singing  a  hymn  to  Christ  as  God.  They 
were  bound  together  by  no  unlawful  sacraments,  but 
only  under  mutual  obligation  not  to  commit 
theft,  robbery,  adultery,  or  fraud.  They  met  a  sec- 
ond time  in  the  day,  and  partook  together  of  food, 
but  that  of  a  perfectly  innocent  kind.  The  test  of 
guilt  to  which  he  submitted  the  most  obstinate  de- 
linquents was  adoration  before  the  statues  of  the 
gods  and  of  the  Emperor  and  the  malediction  of 
Christ.  Those  who  refused  he  ordered  led  to  exe- 
cution." Under  the  circumstances,  Trajan  could 
do  nothing  but  sentence  the  Christians  to  death  for 
treason  against  the  state.  In  denying  the  divinity 
of  the  Empire,  they  denied  the  Empire  itself.  If 
the  authority,  the  Empire,  were  not  divine,  it  was 
brutal.  If  it  had  not  the  sanction  of  the  gods,  its 
only  sanction  was  the  brute  strength  of  the  soldier. 
In  studying  the  relation  of  church  and  state  dur- 
ing the  anti-Christian  period  we  must  always  re- 
member that  we  are  reading  the  history  of  a 
religious  conflict.  The  city  of  Rome,  as  we  have  al- 
ready learned,  was  intensely  religious.  Its  founda- 
tions were  laid  in  the  fear  of  the  gods.  To  the  gods 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  109 

it  looked  for  favor,  for  protection,  and  for  victory; 
and  its  calamities  it  ascribed  to  the  anger  of  the 
gods.  The  Christians  were  guilty  of  the  crime  of 
dishonoring  and  denying  the  gods.  In  the  estima- 
tion of  their  generations  they  were  atheists,  and  as 
such  deserved  no  better  fate  than  to  be  thrown  to 
the  lions  and  burned  at  the  stake.  It  was  the  wise 
and  good  Emperor  Trajan  who  sent  the  holy  bishop 
Ignatius  from  Antioch  to  be  cast  to  the  wild  beasts 
in  the  amphitheater  at  Rome. 

Trajan  was  succeeded  in  the  Empire  by  his 
cousin,  Hadrian,  who,  lacking  the  military 
genius  and  ambition  of  his  predecessor,  with- 
drew the  legions  from  beyond  the  Tigris,  abandoned 
the  conquests  of  Trajan,  and  gave  to  the  Empire  the 
blessing  of  peace.  Hadrian  was  restless  by  nature, 
and  spent  his  time  in  journeying  from  place  to  place, 
investigating  the  administration  of  the  Empire,  and 
punishing  those  who  were  guilty  of  corruption  in 
office,  and  so  delivering  the  people  from  oppressive 
rule.  Hadrian,  following  the  example  of  Nerva, 
adopted  as  his  son  and  successor  the  best  and  wisest 
of  the  living  Romans,  the  senator  Titus  Antoninus, 
called  Antoninus  Pius,  on  condition  that  he  would 
in  turn  adopt  Marcus  Annius  Verus,  afterward 
called  Marcus  Aurelius. 


i io  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

The  joint  reigns  of  Antoninus  Pius  and  Marcus 
Aurelius,  covering  a  period  of  forty-seven  years,  are 
without  doubt  the  twilight  hours  of  the  ancient 
world.  In  these  two  Emperors  Roman  virtue  mani- 
fested itself  in  all  the  beauty  and  pathos  of  a  sunset 
glow.  Antoninus,  the  sage,  and  Marcus  Aurelius, 
the  saint,  were  men  who  would  have  done  honor  to 
any  religion.  They  ruled  in  righteousness,  and  had 
hearts  to  pity  the  miseries  of  the  people.  Marcus 
Aurelius  is  recognized  by  men  of  all  creeds  as  one 
of  the  great  spiritual  leaders  of  mankind.  He  lived 
a  life  of  austere  virtue  without  hope  of  other  reward 
than  the  approval  of  his  own  conscience.  He  was  a 
saint  in  a  palace,  a  humble  soul  with  the  world  at 
his  feet.  That  he  should  have  missed  the  secret  of 
Jesus  was  his  misfortune,  and  not  his  fault.  He 
was  the  last  of  the  ancients;  the  victim  of  a  dying 
world.  With  the  death  of  Marcus  on  the  I7th  of 
March  in  the  year  180,  the  sun  of  Roman  greatness 
went  down  into  a  night  of  gloom.  Commodus,  the 
son  of  Marcus,  was  a  tyrant  of  the  worst  type,  vie- 
ing  with  Nero  and  Domitian  for  the  palm  of  infamy 
among  the  rulers  of  the  world.  From  Commodus, 
who  was  murdered  in  190,  to  the  accession  of  Di- 
ocletian in  284,  twenty-three  Emperors  rose  and  fell. 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  in 

Thirteen  of  these  were  slain  by  their  own  servants 
or  soldiers.  Only  three,  Severus,  Aurelian,  and 
Probus,  have  left  names  worthy  of  remembrance. 
Diocletian,  a  Dalmatian  peasant,  made  one  last  ef- 
fort to  destroy  Christianity,  revive  the  ancient  faith, 
and  to  re-establish  the  authority  of  the  empire. 
He  swept  away  the  last  vestige  of  the  ancient  Ro- 
man liberties,  and  made  the  government  an  oriental 
despotism,  pure  and  simple.  His  scheme  of  divid- 
ing the  Empire  into  four  grand  divisions  under  two 
Emperors  and  two  Caesars  was  a  failure  from  the 
first,  and,  wearied  in  his  effort  to  hold  together  the 
falling  state,  Diocletian  resigned  the  Empire  in  the 
fifty-ninth  year  of  his  age  and  turned  his  attention 
to  raising  cabbages.  The  retirement  of  Diocletian 
was  followed  by  a  period  of  confusion  until  Con- 
stantine  re-established  the  imperial  power  in  his  own 
person,  and  reconstituted  the  Empire  on  a  Christian 
basis.  Whether  Constantine  was  converted  by  mir- 
acle or  by  reason,  his  course  was  dictated  by  far- 
seeing  wisdom  and  consummate  statesmanship.  In 
the  Christian  religion  he  found  the  only  remaining 


112  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

faith  by  which  men  could  live  and  in  the  Christian 
churches  the  only  centers  of  order  in  the  Empire. 

For  three-hundred  years  the  churches  had  been 
increasing  their  numbers  and  perfecting  their  or- 
ganization. They  had  gathered  into  their  member- 
ship nearly  all  the  moral  worth  of  the  Empire. 
Men  who  wished  to  live  clean,  sober,  industrious 
lives  turned  to  the  Christian  church  as  to  a  place  of 
safety;  for  it  was  the  first  principle  of  the  church 
that  men  should  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly 
in  this  present  world.  The  church  attracted  to  its 
fold  by  the  powerful  magnet  of  holiness.  We  won- 
der what  brought  men  into  the  Christian  church  and 
what  kept  them  there.  The  whole  world  was 
against  them.  Christianity  was  not  fashionable  in 
those  days.  To  become  a  Christian  meant  to  be- 
come an  outcast.  The  very  name  was  an  accusa- 
tion. If  a  man  entered  the  church  he  did  it  at  the 
hazard  of  his  life ;  he  severed  the  noblest  ties  of  hu- 
manity; he  became  an  object  of  hatred  to  his  own 
father  and  mother ;  his  wife  and  his  children  looked 
on  him  with  horror.  Yet,  for  all  this,  men  and 
women  crowded  into  the  church  by  the  thousand, 
and  there  they  stayed  in  spite  of  entreaty,  of  perse- 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  113 

cution,  and  death.  Now  the  power  that  brought 
men  to  the  church  and  kept  them  there  was  the 
power  of  holiness.  It  was  the  longing  to  be  clean 
that  caused  men  to  come  and  be  washed  in  the  wa- 
ters of  baptism. 

Men  were  drawn  to  the  Christian  church,  not  only 
by  this  power  of  holiness,  but  also  by  the  sense  of 
brotherhood.  Christianity  defined  religion  in  terms 
of  social  service  as  well  as  in  terms  of  personal  pur- 
ity. "Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and 
the  Father  is  this :  To  visit  the  fatherless  and  wid- 
ows in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  unspotted 
from  the  world."*  The  sense  of  brotherhood  gave 
to  the  Christian  church  that  unity  which  is  strength. 
While  all  the  outside  world  was  groaning  under  a 
system  of  class  and  cast,  the  Christian  church  was 
inspired  by  the  spirit  of  equality,  which  made  of 
every  man  a  person,  with  the  force  of  a  personality 
to  do  and  to  dare  for  Christ  and  the  church.  That 
is  a  great  age  in  any  community,  when  every  man 
counts  for  one,  stands  for  what  he  is,  and  contrib- 
utes what  he  has  to  the  common  cause. 

The  primitive  Christian  churches  were  not  simply 


*  James  I. :  27. 
REL.  &  POL.— 8 


ii4  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

congregations;  they  were  communities  having  a 
common  faith  and  sharing  in  a  common  life.  While 
we  cannot  say  that  community  of  goods  was  the 
practice  of  the  primitive  church  for  any  length  of 
time,  yet  we  can  say  that  community  of  life  was  the 
characteristic  of  the  first  age  of  Christianity.  Every 
Christian  had  the  right  to  share  in  the  average  pros- 
perity of  the  Christian  world.  Vast  wealth  and  ab- 
ject poverty  could  not  dwell  side  by  side  under  the 
shadow  of  the  cross.  The  wealth  was  unhappy  un- 
til it  had  emptied  itself  to  supply  the  wants  of  the 
needy.  Thus  there  was,  by  the  end  of  the  third  cen- 
tury, in  every  town  of  the  Roman  Empire  a  Chris- 
tian church  bound  together  by  a  common  belief, 
inspired  by  a  common  hope,  and  living  a  common 
life. 

Each  of  these  societies  was  under  the  presidency* 
of  a  bishop  chosen  by  itself,  and  was  advised  by  a 
council  of  elders  taken  directly  from  the  people. 
At  first  there  was  no  distinction  between  the  clergy 
and  the  laity,  the  minister  was  simply  a  layman  in 
office,  no  more  sacred  than  the  poorest  and  most  ob- 
scure member  of  the  society.  According  to  Apos- 
tolic teaching  every  follower  of  Christ  was  a  priest 


*Justin  Martyr,   ist  Apology,  chap.  LXV. 


THE  IMPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  115 

and  a  king.  The  rise  of  the  Episcopal  order  to 
power  was  the  natural  result  of  the  life  led  by  the 
bishop.  While  the  church  was  in  opposition  and 
subject  to  persecution  the  bishop  was  naturally  the 
first  to  suffer.  He,  as  the  leader  of  his  people,  had 
to  bear  the  blame  for  them  all.  His  conspicuous 
position  was  the  post  of  danger.  He  stood  every 
day  between  his  people  and  death.  Such  a  dis- 
cipline could  produce  nothing  but  moral  heroes,  and 
such  of  necessity  were  the  bishops  of  the  anti- 
Nicaean  church, — men  who  hazarded  their  lives 
daily  for  the  sake  of  the  people  under  their  charge. 
And  their  office  compelled  them  to  lives  of  benev- 
olence. They  were  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  poor ; 
they  were  the  servants  of  slaves  and  beggars. 
Christian  history  is  full  of  beautiful  stories  of  Epis- 
copal humility  and  Episcopal  benevolence.  We 
have  just  been  telling  our  children  of  Santa  Qaus, 
the  giver  of  gifts,  the  friend  of  children.  But  who 
of  us  know  that  Santa  Claus  is  not  the  jolly  Dutch 
saint  of  the  nursery,  but  a  gentle  bishop,  Saint  Nich- 
olas of  Mysia,  who  used  to  steal  about  his  city  and 
find  out  secretly  the  needs  of  his  people  and  then 
supply  that  need  by  putting  money  in  the  window 
and  hiding  it  in  chimney  corners.  It  was  men  like 


n6  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Nicholas  and  Polycarp  and  a  host  of  others  who 
won  for  the  Episcopate  its  place  and  power  in  the 
world.  And  it  was  this  government  of  love  that 
grew  stronger  and  stronger  while  the  government 
of  force  grew  weaker  and  weaker,  until  at  last  the 
government  by  force  found  its  only  safety  in  ally- 
ing itself  to  the  government  by  love. 

The  triumph  of  Christianity  in  the  fourth  century 
was  the  triumph  of  moral  over  physical  force,  and, 
though  that  triumph  was  partial,  it  was  still  a  victory 
for  all  time  and  for  all  the  world. 

It  is  true  that  when  Constantine  established  the 
Christian  religion  as  the  religion  of  the  Empire  the 
church  had  lost  much  of  its  primitive  simplicity 
and  purity.  Its  membership  contained  vast  num- 
bers who  were  Christians,  not  so  much  from  choice, 
as  from  inheritance.  These  were  lacking  in  that 
zeal  which  belongs  only  to  the  convert;  to  the  man 
who,  after  struggle  and  sacrifice,  finds  God  for  him- 
self. In  spite  of  persecutions  the  greater  number 
of  the  Christians  lived  at  ease.  They  found  safety 
in  their  numbers.  And  the  virtues  of  the  Christians 
were  conducive  to  their  temporal  wellbeing.  So- 
briety and  industry,  honesty  and  frugality,  produced 
their  natural  result,  and  the  Christians  became  pros- 


THE  1MPERIALIZED  CHURCH.  117 

perous  and  wealthy,  and  with  prosperity  and  wealth 
came  spiritual  coldness  and  a  love  of  this  present 
world.  The  office  of  bishop,  while  it  was  a  place  of 
danger,  was  also  the  post  of  honor ;  and  men  aspired 
to  the  Episcopate  more  for  the  sake  of  the  honor 
than  for  the  desire  for  sacrifice.  In  spite  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  office  seeking  crept  into  the 
church  and  corrupted  its  simplicity. 

A  still  more  deadly  evil  was  the  spirit  of  theologi- 
cal contention,  which  at  this  time  took  possession 
of  the  church  and  changed  the  religion  of  Christ 
into  a  religion  of  hatred  instead  of  a  religion  of  love. 
The  fierce  contentions  which  had  destroyed  the  unity 
of  Christians  could  not  but  weaken  the  moral 
stamina  of  the  community.  It  was  the  loss  of  sim- 
plicity by  reason  of  theological  subtilty  followed  by 
theological  fury  that  was  the  secret  of  the  church's 
failure  in  the  fourth  century  to  make  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  the  kingdoms  of  God  and  His  Christ. 
The  church  surrendered  to  the  Emperor  as  truly  as 
the  Emperor  submitted  to  the  church.  The  con- 
cordat between  Constantine  and  the  bishops  was  the 
first  of  those  agreements,  since  so  common,  to  sacri- 
fice the  essence  of  Christianity  to  the  safety  of  its 
form,  and  to  make  the  worship  of  the  person  of 
Christ  a  substitute  for  the  practice  of  His  teaching. 


n8  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Constantine  was  a  man  of  violent  and  gloomy 
temper.  He  put  to  death  his  sister's  husband,  his  own 
eldest  son,  and  his  wife;  and  yet  this  was  the  man 
whom  the  bishops  of  the  church  fawned  upon  and 
chose  as  the  champion  of  the  church  of  Christ.  But 
in  spite  of  the  character  of  Constantine  and  the  de- 
generacy of  the  church,  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tianity was  a  forward  movement  in  the  history  of 
the  race.  It  was  not  so  much  the  establishment  of 
the  church  as  it  was  the  recognition  of  the  new  ideal. 
Men  were  no  longer  compelled  to  worship  Caesar 
as  divine.  He  was  nothing  but  a  mortal  man,  God's 
servant,  and  subject  to  the  judgment  of  Christ. 
Christ  crucified  was  and  is  a  standing  reproach  to  a 
luxurious  and  self-seeking  world.  Vast  and  im- 
portant changes  in  the  social  state  of  the  Empire 
followed  hard  upon  the  conversion  of  the  Emperor 
and  the  peace  of  the  church.  Gladiatorial  shows, 
the  disgrace  of  the  ancient  world,  disappeared.  The 
condition  of  the  slave  was  ameliorated,  and  slavery 
was  discredited  and  put  in  the  way  of  abolition. 
The  desire  for  personal  purity  and  the  passion  for 
social  service  were  honored,  not  only  by  the  church, 


THE  IMPER1ALIZED  CHURCH.  119 

but  by  the  world.  The  Christian  type  of  character 
became  the  accepted  type ;  and  the  Christian  type 
was  a  distinct  advance  on  that  which  it  supplanted. 
And  in  the  struggle  for  Christian  perfection  the 
world  was  saved  from  the  corrupting  ideals  that 
were  fostered  by  the  ancient  religions. 

But,  if  the  Empire  became  in  a  measure  Christian- 
ized, the  church  to  an  equal  degree  became  imperial- 
ized.  The  Episcopate  was  no  longer  the  post  of 
danger ;  it  was  a  position  of  dignity  and  honor.  The 
Christian  ministry  succeeded  to  the  privileges  of  the 
ancient  priesthoods.  The  temples  of  Jupiter,  Mars, 
and  Venus  became  Christian  churches,  and  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  assumed  the  title  of  Pontifix 
Maximus. 


The    Subjection    of   the    Eastern 
Church   to   the   State. 

On  Good  Friday,  in  the  year  404,  the  church  of 
Saint  Sophia,  in  Constantinople,  was  a  scene  of  wild 
confusion.  The  soldiers  of  the  Emperor  invaded 
the  sanctuary,  disturbed  the  sacrament  of  baptism, 
silenced  the  voice  of  the  minister,  stained  the  bap- 
tismal waters  and  the  floor  of  the  sanctuary  with  the 
blood  of  the  worshipers;  the  sacred  vessels  were 
snatched  from  the  altar,  and  the  sacred  elements  of 
bread  and  wine  were  trodden  under  foot.  It  must 
not  be  supposed  that  the  soldiers  who  were  guilty 
of  this  sacrilege  were  heathen  men,  the  willing  in- 
struments of  heathen  Emperors.  On  the  contrary, 
they  were  nominally  Christian  soldiers,  obeying  the 
orders  of  a  nominally  Christian  Emperor.  The 
cause  of  the  disturbance  was  the  anger  which  had 
been  roused  in  the  imperial  palace  by  the  preaching 
of  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople.  The  bishop 
against  whom  this  violence  was  directed  is  known 

[120] 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       121 

to  history  as  Saint  Chrysostom.  The  instigator  of 
the  violence  was  Eudoxia,  wife  of  the  Emperor 
Arcadius. 

Only  sixty-seven  years  had  passed  away  since 
the  death  of  Constantine,  but  in  that  brief  period  of 
time  the  whole  character  of  the  Roman  world  had 
been  transformed.  Constantine  had  removed  the 
capital  of  the  Empire  from  the  city  of  Rome,  on  the 
Tiber,  to  the  site  of  the  town  Byzantium,  on  the  Bos- 
phorus.  The  Emperor  had  seen  at  a  glance  the 
vast  strategic  importance  of  this  site,  commanding 
as  it  does,  the  water  way  from  the  East  to  the  West, 
so  he  seized  upon  it  and  made  it  the  seat  of  his  Em- 
pire. Almost  in  a  night  he  built  a  great  city  in 
place  of  the  provincial  town,  and  called  it  New 
Rome.  The  buildings  of  the  new  city  were  exe- 
cuted, says  the  historian  Gibbon,  by  such  artificers 
as  the  reign  of  Constantine  could  afford,  but  they 
were  decorated  by  the  hands  of  the  most  celebrated 
masters  of  the  age  of  Pericles  and  Alexander.  By 
the  command  of  Constantine  the  cities  of  Greece  and 
Asia  were  despoiled  of  their  valuable  ornaments, 
which  were  used  to  adorn  this  city  of  the  Caesar. 
The  new  city,  says  Mr.  Finlay  in  his  history  of 


122  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Greece  under  the  Romans,  was  an  exact  copy  of  old 
Rome.  It  was  inhabited  by  senators  from  Rome. 
Wealthy  individuals,  likewise,  from  the  provinces 
were  compelled  to  keep  up  houses  in  Constantinople ; 
pensions  were  conferred  upon  them,  and  a  right  to 
a  certain  amount  of  provision  from  the  public  stores 
was  attached  to  their  dwelling.  Eighty  thousand 
loaves  of  bread  were  distributed  daily  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Constantinople.  For,  though  Constantine 
called  the  city  New  Rome,  he  could  not  fix  that 
name  upon  his  new  capital.  The  people  saw  instinc- 
tively that  this  city  had  no  right  to  the  name  of 
Rome.  It  was  in  no  sense  the  creation  of  the 
Roman  people.  It  was  the  arbitrary  creation  of  an 
oriental  despot;  it  was  the  genius  and  power  of 
Constantine  that  brought  this  city  into  existence, 
and  it  was  naturally  called  Constantinopolis,  or  the 
city  of  Constantine,  and  so  it  is  called  even  to  this 
present  day.  A  city  so  built  and  so  constituted 
could  have  none  of  the  characteristics  of  ancient 
Rome.  It  was  a  city  without  a  history.  No  tradi- 
tions of  ancient  liberty  haunted  its  streets  and 
squares,  as  such  traditions  haunted  the  Appian  Way, 
the  Via  Sacra,  the  Circus  Maximus,  and  the  Forum 
of  old  Rome.  The  Senate,  transplanted  from  its 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       123 

time-honored  seat  on  the  Capitoline  hill,  lost  every 
vestige  of  its  sacredness  and  of  its  authority.  It 
was  simply  a  useless  appendage  to  the  imperial 
court.  The  world  was  ruled,  not  from  the  Senate 
house,  but  from  the  imperial  palace.  It  was  not  the 
conscript  fathers  that  decided  the  fate  of  the  nations ; 
it  was  the  eunuchs  and  the  women  of  the  court. 
The  rule  of  the  Sultan  in  Constantinople  to-day  is 
not  unlike  that  of  the  Christian  Emperors  from  the 
building  of  the  city  by  Constantine  to  its  conquest 
by  the  Turks  in  1453.  When  the  city  surrendered 
to  Mahomet  II.  it  did  not  change  its  form  of  govern- 
ment ;  it  only  changed  its  master.  It  was  an  oriental 
despotism  before  its  fall,  and  it  has  been  an  oriental 
despotism  ever  since. 

At  the  death  of  Constantine  there  was  a  redivis- 
ion  of  the  Empire,  his  three  sons,  Constantine, 
Constans,  and  Constantius,  each  taking  a  portion. 
But  this  division  was  of  short  duration.  Constantine 
II.  was  killed  in  battle  by  the  forces  of  his  brother 
Constans,  who  in  turn  was  murdered  by  his  own 
soldiery ;  thus  leaving  Constantius  sole  ruler  of  the 
Empire.  All  of  these  Emperors  were  nominally 


124  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Christian.  They  took  an  active  part  in  the  affairs  of 
the  church.  In  the  great  conflict  between  the  Ari- 
ans  and  the  orthodox  bishops,  the  Emperors  were 
sometimes  on  one  side  and  sometimes  on  the  other. 
Constantius  banished  Athanasius  from  Alexandria, 
and  Constans  gave  the  Alexandrian  a  triumphant 
welcome  to  Rome.  Church  and  state  were  only  dif- 
ferent instrumentalities  used  by  the  Emperors  to 
further  their  own  ends.  On  the  death  of  Constan- 
tius, his  nephew,  Julian,  known  as  the  Apostate, 
succeeded  to  the  throne,  and  made  one  last  effort  to 
restore  the  ancient  religion  of  the  Empire.  He  sur- 
rounded himself  with  philosophers,  banished  the 
bishops  from  his  court,  and  sacrificed  at  the  altars 
of  Jupiter  and  Apollo.  But  this  attempt  of  the 
Emperor  to  revive  the  old  faith  ended  in  dismal  fail- 
ure. The  people  refused  to  follow  him ;  they  would 
not  keep  the  festivals,  nor  bring  offerings  to  the  al- 
tars of  the  ancient  gods.  Julian  himself  had  no  real 
faith  in  the  religion  which  he  tried  to  restore.  It 
was  hatred  of  Christianity,  rather  than  love  of  the 
ancient  cult,  which  caused  Julian  to  set  up  the  one 
in  opposition  to  the  other.  And  we  cannot  wonder 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       125 

that  Julian  felt  bitterly  toward  the  new  religion. 
The  Christianity  of  his  day  was  not  the  religion  of 
Jesus ;  it  was  the  ecclesiasticism  of  Constantine  and 
the  bishops.  The  sons  of  Constantine,  Christians 
though  they  were,  had  in  true  oriental  fashion  put  to 
death  the  father  of  Julian  and  all  his  kindred,  and 
had  kept  him  in  degrading  inferiority.  The  young 
prince,  in  order  to  save  his  life,  was  obliged  to  prac- 
tise the  most  consummate  dissimulation.  When  the 
necessities  of  the  Empire  compelled  Constantius  to 
intrust  Julian  with  the  government  of  the  west,  the 
nephew  was  still  followed  by  the  jealous  suspicion 
of  the  uncle,  and  was  at  last  forced  to  raise  the 
standard  of  revolt  to  insure  his  own  safety.  The 
death  of  Constantius  left  Julian  in  sole  possession 
of  the  Empire,  and  he  came  to  the  throne  embittered 
against  existing  conditions,  and  it  was  this  bitterness 
that  led  him  to  revolt  against  the  established  reli- 
gion. The  doctrines  of  the  church  excited  his  deri- 
sion, the  divisions  of  the  church  caused  him  constant 
annoyance,  and  the  ambition  of  the  bishops  and 
clergy  roused  his  contempt;  and  he  thought  to  get 
rid  of  the  evils  of  his  time  by  undoing  the  work  of 
centuries  and  bringing  back  conditions  that  existed 
in  the  Roman  world  before  the  preaching  of  the 


126  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

gospel  of  Christ.  But  such  efforts  to  restore  the 
past  are  always  futile,  and  Julian  died  confessing 
that  the  Galilean  had  conquered.  With  his  death 
the  family  of  Constantine  became  extinct,  and  the 
Empire  was  once  more  the  prize  of  the  successful 
general.  At  the  time  of  his  death  Julian  was  lead- 
ing an  expedition  against  the  Persians.  The  army 
raised  one  of  its  leading  commanders,  Jovian,  to  the 
throne,  who  displaced  a  great  number  of  brave  gen- 
erals and  able  functionaries  whom  Julian  had  ap- 
pointed because  of  their  zeal  for  paganism,  and  in 
their  place  put  zealous  Christians  and  restored 
Christianity  as  the  established  religion  of  the  Em- 
pire. "From  that  period,"*  says  de  Sismondi,  "up 
to  the  fall  of  the  Empire  a  hostile  sect,  which  re- 
garded itself  as  unjustly  stripped  of  its  ancient  hon- 
ors, invoked  the  vengeance  of  the  gods  on  the  heads 
of  the  government,  exulted  in  the  public  calamities, 
and  probably  hastened  them  by  its  intrigues,  though 
inextricably  involved  in  the  common  ruin.  The 
pagan  faith,  which  was  not  attached  to  a  body  of 
doctrine,  nor  supported  by  a  corporation  of  priests, 
nor  heightened  by  the  fervor  of  novelty,  scarcely 


*The  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  J.  C.  L.  de  Sismondi, 
chap.  v. 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       127 

ever  displayed  itself  in  open  revolt  or  dared  the  per- 
ils of  martyrdom ;  but  pagans  still  occupied  the  fore- 
most rank  in  letters,  the  orators,  the  philosophers 
(or,  as  they  were  otherwise  called,  sophists),  the  his- 
torians, belonged  almost  without  exception  to  the 
ancient  religion.  It  still  kept  possession  of  the  most 
illustrious  schools,  especially  those  of  Athens  and 
Alexandria ;  the  majority  of  the  Roman  Senate  were 
attached  to  it,  and  in  the  breasts  of  the  common 
people,  particularly  the  rural  population,  it  main- 
tained its  power  for  several  centuries,  branded,  how- 
ever, with  the  name  of  Magic." 

But  the  ancient  faith  did  more  than  simply  stand 
aside  in  sullen  opposition.  Vast  numbers  of  pagans 
conformed  to  Christianity  without  understanding  its 
principles,  or  believing  in  its  way  of  life,  and  these 
new  adherents  transformed  the  faith  of  Christ  into 
the  likeness  of  the  ancient  religion  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  They  paganized  and  imperialized  the 
church  of  Jesus.  It  was  impossible  that  the  idealism 
of  Jesus  should  not  suffer  when  it  came  in  contact 
with  the  gross  realities  of  the  world.  The  religion 
of  Jesus  demanded  a  purity  of  heart  and  a  simplicity 
of  life  which  are  impossible  of  attainment  by  the 
mass  of  mankind.  The  best  that  the  average  man 


128  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

can  do  is  to  make  some  approach  to  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus.  Only  choice  souls,  those  in  whom  the 
moral  and  spiritual  nature  is  developed  in  an  ex- 
traordinary degree,  can  live  the  life  that  Jesus  pre- 
scribed as  the  highest  life  possible  to  man.  As  long 
as  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy,  he  cannot  so  much 
as  comprehend  the  character  and  teaching  of  the 
man  who  lives  in  and  for  the  spiritual  and  the  moral. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  teachings  of  Jesus  should 
be  misconstrued  by  His  followers,  and  depraved  by 
the  world  at  large.  As  soon  as  the  religion  of  Jesus 
left  its  native  heath  of  upper  Galilee  it  began  to 
suffer  from  the  admixture  of  foreign  elements. 
Paul,  fervent  follower  of  Christ,  though  he  was, 
could  not  help  darkening  his  Christian  teaching  with 
the  subtleties  and  obscurities  of  the  rabbinical 
schools.  The  writer  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  steeped 
as  he  was  in  the  philosophy  of  Plato  as  interpreted 
by  the  Alexandrian  Jew  Philo  Judseus,  could  not 
help  translating  the  teaching  of  Jesus  into  the  terms 
of  that  philosophy  with  which  he  was  most  familiar. 
And  when  the  new  religion  was  torn  from  its  Jewish 
origin  and  became  the  property  of  the  Greco-Roman 
world  then  the  Greco-Roman  world  transformed 
that  religion  into  its  own  likeness.  The  Greek  made 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       129 

of  Christianity  a  philosophy;  the  Roman  made  of 
it  an  empire. 

With  the  philosophy  which  the  Greek  dialectic, 
under  the  name  of  theology,  substituted  for  the  reli- 
gion of  Jesus  we  have  nothing  to  do  in  these  lec- 
tures, only  so  far  as  the  contentions  of  the  church 
were  used  by  the  Emperors  as  a  means  for  subduing 
the  church  to  the  imperial  will.  Our  present  con- 
cern is  with  the  relation  of  the  church  to  the  state. 
With  the  establishment  of  Christianity  as  the  state 
religion,  the  Christian  commonwealth  ceased  to  ex- 
ist. That  life  which  the  Christians  had  led  apart 
from  the  world  was  no  longer  possible.  When 
everybody  is  a  Christian  nobody  is  a  Christian.  That 
doctrine  of  the  primitive  church  which  taught  the 
communion  of  saints  lost  its  meaning  and  remained 
in  the  creed,  not  as  an  active  element  in  the  Chris- 
tian's faith,  but  only  as  an  historical  deposit. 

While,  as  we  have  learned  in  a  previous  lecture, 
community  of  goods  was  not  a  precept  or  a  practice 
for  any  length  of  time  of  the  early  church,  yet  com- 
munity of  life  was.  The  early  church  was  a  mu- 
tual benefit  society,  in  the  goods  of  which  every 

REL.   &   POL.— 9 


130  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

member's  share  was  according  to  his  need.  The 
bishops  of  the  church  were  the  fathers  of  the  people, 
having  with  the  father's  authority  the  father's  re- 
sponsibility;* with  the  care  of  the  children  as  the 
uppermost  thought  in  their  minds,  and  the  chief 
duty  of  their  lives.  With  the  establishment  of 
Christianity  all  this  was  instantly  changed.  The 
gifts  which  the  Emperors  bestowed  upon  the  clergy, 
the  immunities  which  he  granted  them,  soon  direct- 
ed the  ambition  of  the  average  Christian  entirely  to 
ecclesiastical  dignities.  The  bishop  was  changed  at 
once  from  a  hero  to  a  sycophant.  He  was  willing 
then,  as  he  has,  alas,  been  only  too  willing  since,  to 
condone  every  crime  in  the  person  of  the  ruler  who 
was  able  to  promote  him  to  places  of  honor.  For 
more  than  a  century  the  spirit  of  Jesus  struggled 
with  the  rising  tide  of  corruption  within  the  church. 
Christianity  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  was  not 
without  its  saints  and  martyrs.  But  these  saints  and 
martyrs  were  not  the  official  leaders  of  the  church, 
or,  if  leaders,  were  driven  forth  from  their  leader- 
ship and  made  to  suffer  persecution  for  the  cause  of 
true  religion.  With  the  death  of  Jovian,  the  Em- 
pire fell  into  the  hands  of  Valentinian,  a  brave  and 


*  Apostolic  Constitutions,  bk.  4,  §  i. 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       131 

worthy  officer,  who  associated  his  brother  Valens 
with  himself  in  the  cares  of  Empire,  Valentinian 
reigning  in  the  west,  and  Valens  in  the  east.  Val- 
entinian established  universal  toleration  by  law  and 
took  no  part  in  the  sectarian  controversies  that  di- 
vided Christendom.  Valens  was  an  Arian,  and  per- 
secuted the  Orthodox  party.  The  Emperors,  though 
they  ceded  the  deity  to  God  in  Christ,  still  considered 
themselves  as  Pontifex  Maximus,  as  the  head  both 
of  the  church  and  the  state ;  and  the  fortunes  of  the 
various  parties  within  the  church  rose  and  fell  in 
accordance  with  the  leaning  of  the  Emperor  toward 
one  opinion  or  the  other. 

Gratian,  the  son  of  Valentinian,  succeeded  to  the 
Empire  of  the  west  on  the  death  of  his  father,  and, 
finding  himself  unequal  to  the  task  of  governing  the 
distracted  world,  he  chose  with  great  magnanimity  a 
man  who  was  his  enemy  to  share  the  throne.  He 
adopted  Theodosius  a  Spaniard,  the  son  of  a  man 
whom  he  had  sent  to  the  scaffold,  as  his  colleague, 
and  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  armies.  Theo- 
dosius was  a  devout  Christian.  He  was  baptized 


132  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

during  a  serious  illness  by  a  Catholic  bishop,  and 
when  he  rose  from  his  sick  bed  he  issued  his  famous 
edict  establishing  the  Orthodox  or  Catholic  faith  as 
the  religion  of  the  Empire.  This  edict  reads  as  fol- 
lows: "To  the  people  of  Constantinople — We  de- 
sire that  all  nations  who  are  governed  by  the  rule  of 
our  clemency  shall  practise  that  religion  which  the 
Apostle  Peter  himself  delivered  to  the  Romans,  and 
which  it  is  manifest  that  the  pontiff,  Damasus,  and 
Peter  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  a  man  of  apostolic 
sanctity,  do  now  follow,  that,  according  to  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  Apostles  and  the  teaching  of  the 
Evangelists,  they  believe  in  the  one  Godhead  of  the 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  in  equal  majesty,  and 
the  Holy  Trinity.  We  order  all  who  follow  this 
law  to  assume  the  name  of  Catholic  Christians, 
decreeing  that  all  others,  being  mad  and  foolish 
persons,  shall  bear  the  infamy  of  their  heretical 
dogmas,  and  that  their  conventicles  shall  not  receive 
the  name  of  churches;  they  to  be  punished  first  by 
Divine  vengeance,  and  afterward  by  that  exertion 
of  our  power  to  chastise  which  we  have  received 
from  the  decree  of  heaven." 

As  we  read  this  Edict  of  Theodosius  we  won- 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       133 

der  what  has  become  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus. 
Can  these  be  the  words  of  a  disciple  of  the  Prophet 
of  Nazareth,  who  said  "Resist  not  evil,"  and 
who  from  the  cross  prayed  for  his  persecutors, 
saying :  "Father  forgive  them ;  they  know  not  what 
they  do?"  With  this  Edict  of  Theodosius  we  come 
to  the  parting  of  the  ways  at  which  the  religion  of 
Jesus  and  the  Christianity  of  the  church  separated 
one  from  the  other,  never  to  meet  again  in  history. 
The  church  in  the  days  of  her  domination  forgot 
the  Lord  and  His  teaching,  and  followed  the  way  of 
the  world.  From  this  hour  we  begin  to  read  the 
disgraceful  history  of  persecution,  not  of  the  church, 
but  by  the  church.  A  new  and  fearful  crime  came 
into  existence  with  the  establishment  of  Christianity 
as  the  religion  of  the  world.  Men  had  been  pun- 
ished of  old  for  murder,  for  adultery,  for  robbery, 
and  for  arson.  It  was  not  until  the  days  of  tri- 
umphant Christianity  that  the  crime  of  heresy  was 
known  and  visited  with  imprisonment  and  death. 
The  Romans  punished  the  Christians,  not  as  here- 
tics, but  as  rebels;  but  when  Christianity  was  set 
up  in  the  world  men  and  women  were  condemned 
for  misplacing  an  iota  or  misconstruing  a  passage 
of  scripture.  It  was  dangerous  to  think,  and  fatal 
to  express  an  opinion.  It  is  impossible  to  compute 


134  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  injury  which  has  come  to  mankind  by  the  en- 
forcement of  the  principle  laid  down  in  the  Edict  of 
Theodosius.  It  arrested  the  progress  of  Christian- 
ity in  the  east.  For  more  than  a  thousand  years  the 
eastern  church  has  been  held  in  the  iron  hand  of  an 
inexorable  orthodoxy.  The  great  body  of  Christ- 
ians receiving  their  religion  from  without,  a  mere 
imposition  of  authority,  have  long  since  lost  the 
power  of  motion,  and  are  an  inert  mass  used  to  sus- 
tain the  despotism  that  holds  them  in  subjection. 

From  the  days  of  Theodosius  the  eastern  church 
suffered  a  rapid  and  mortal  decline.  It  was  Eu- 
doxia,  the  wife  of  Arcadius,  the  son  of  Theodosius, 
who  drove  St.  John  Chrysostom  into  exile,  and, 
seeing  the  fate  of  this  saint,  no  bishop  dared  there- 
after to  brave  the  wrath  of  the  women  and  the 
eunuchs  of  the  palace.  Ecclesiastics  became  the 
most  courtly  of  men,  and  bowed  low  in  the  ante- 
chambers of  the  mistresses  and  favorites  of  the 
reigning  Emperor.  The  great  bishops  of  the  fifth 
century  had  no  successors.  It  required  men  of  baser 
mold  than  Basil  and  the  Gregories  to  gain  and  hold 
the  favor  of  the  Eudoxias,  Pulcherias,  and  Theo- 
doras, and  women  of  like  character  who,  during  the 
sixth  and  succeeding  centuries,  were  the  real  rulers 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       135 

of  the  eastern  Empire.  For  it  was  then,  as  always, 
in  every  decadent  civilization  it  is  the  decadent 
women  that  rule  the  world.  It  took  three  hundred 
years  for  the  Christian  religion  to  become  the  estab- 
lished religion  of  the  Roman  world,  and  it  took  just 
three  hundred  years  for  that  religion,  as  established, 
to  fall  from  its  high  place,  to  become,  not  a  dom- 
inant, but  a  subject,  religion, — a  religion  which  is 
allowed  to  exist  simply  through  the  contemptuous 
toleration  of  its  conquerers. 

In  the  year  620,  just  three  hundred  years,  less 
five,  after  the  sitting  of  the  Council  of  Nice,  which 
fixed  the  creed  of  Christendom  and  made  heresy  a 
crime,  Mahomet,  the  Arabian  prophet,  made  his 
hegira  from  the  city  of  Mecca  to  Medina.  This 
hegira  or  flight  of  the  prophet  marks  the  beginning 
of  the  Moslem  epoch.  Within  a  few  years  of  the 
death  of  the  prophet  Galilee  and  Judea,  the  original 
home  of  Christianity,  together  with  Syria  and  the 
east,  were  forever  lost  to  Christendom  and  to  the 
Empire.  Christianity,  depraved  by  a  corrupt 
priesthood,  weakened  by  secession  after  secession 
of  Nestorian,  Eutychian,  and  other  heretics,  worn 
out  by  endless  contentions,  worshipping  trinities, 


136  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

angels,  saints,  and  martyrs,  had  no  power  to  with- 
stand the  enthusiasts  who  rushed,  out  of  the  Arab- 
ian desert  with  their  stern,  monotheistic  creed.  And 
for  the  next  thousand  years  the  history  of  the  east  is 
the  history  of  the  Moslem  conquest.  The  Christian 
church,  the  subservient  instrument  of  Christian  im- 
perialism, has  become  the  equally  subservient  slave 
of  Moslem  despotism.  To  this  day  the  patriarch  of 
Constantinople  holds  his  office  subject  to  the  will 
of  the  Sultan.  Having  taught  passive  obedience  for 
so  long,  the  eastern  Christian  has  lost  all  knowl- 
edge of  and  power  for  passive  resistance.  He  is  the 
slave  to  the  Sultan  because  he  is  also  a  slave  to  the 
church.  His  blind  orthodoxy  is  largely  to  blame 
for  his  tame  submission  to  outrage. 

Before  the  fall  of  Constantinople  the  eastern 
church  made  one  important  conquest  for  Christian- 
ity. It  was  the  eastern  church  that  added  Russia  to 
the  domain  of  Christendom.  But  the  conversion  of 
the  Russians  was  not  the  work  of  an  army  of  zeal- 
ous missionaries  hazarding  their  lives  for  the  faith  ; 
it  was  the  work  of  the  Byzantine  court.  Vladimir, 
the  ruler  of  the  Russians,  demanded  the  daughter  of 
the  Byzantine  Emperor  in  marriage.  His  baptism 
was  made  a  condition  of  granting  his  prayer. 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       137 

Nothing  loath,  this  barbarian,  who  is  described  as  a 
monster  of  cruelty  and  licentiousness,  went  to  Con- 
stantinople and  was  duly  baptised  and  received  into 
holy  church.  Returning  to  Russia,  Vladimir 
ordered  his  subjects  to  proceed  at  once  to  the  nearest 
river  and  be  baptized.  This  imperial  decree  was 
implicitly  obeyed,  and  so  Russia  became  Christian 
and  Orthodox,  and  Christian,  and  Orthodox  Russia 
has  remained  to  this  present  day. 

The  Russian  church  as  it  exists  to-day  is  a  perfect 
example  of  one  phase  of  the  imperialized  church. 
In  Russia  the  church  has  no  separate  existence;  it 
is  simply  a  function  of  the  state.  The  Czar  is  the 
head  of  the  church.  The  affairs  of  the  church  are 
in  the  keeping  of  a  bureau  of  the  government.  The 
officer  presiding  over  this  department  of  state  is  the 
High  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod,  and  is  always 
one  of  the  ablest,  as  he  is  one  of  the  most  powerful, 
men  in  the  Empire.  Podobenoszew,  who  has  held 
this  office  during  the  reigns  of  Alexander  III.  and 
Nicholas,  the  present  Czar,  is  one  of  the  makers 
of  the  modern  world.  He  ranks  as  a  moulding 
influence  with  Gladstone,  Bismarck,  and  Leo  XIII. 
A  fanatic  by  nature  and  a  reactionary  from 


138  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

policy,  he,  more  than  any  other  person,  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  present  condition  of  the  Russian 
Empire.  He  rules  the  church  with  a  rod  of  iron, 
and  looks  upon  the  slightest  innovation  either  in 
doctrine  or  in  ritual  as  a  crime  against  the  Czar. 
He  was  opposed  to  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs, 
and  has  set  his  face  rigidly  against  making  any  con- 
cessions to  the  liberal  sentiment  of  the  country.  For 
ages  the  church  has  aided  and  abetted  the  state  in 
its  cruelties  and  its  tyrannies,  and  consequently  the 
church  is  sharing  to  the  full  in  that  hatred  which  the 
awakening  Russian  has  for  all  the  institutions  of 
his  country.  Kropotkin,  Tolstoy,  and  other  Russian 
writers  have  revealed  to  us  the  attitude  of  the  en- 
lightened Russian  toward  the  established  church. 
The  sight  of  the  church  fills  them  with  loathing  and 
horror.  They  look  upon  it  as  the  Judas  that  has 
betrayed  Jesus.  No  where  in  the  world  are  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  so  entirely  separated  from  the 
doctrines  and  practices  of  Christianity  as  by  the  Re- 
formers in  Russia.  Tolstoy  is  a  disciple  of  Jesus. 
He  believes  that  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  to  be 
found  the  salvation  of  the  world.  The  saying  of 
Jesus,  "Resist  not  evil,"  is  to  him,  as  we  have 
already  learned,  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  Lord, 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       139 

the  key  to  His  gospel.  Tolstoy  has  forsaken  the 
court,  and  given  up  a  brilliant  worldly  career  that 
he  might  live  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  Tolstoy 
has  for  the  church  all  the  contempt  and  hatred  of 
the  nihilist.  The  doctrines  of  the  church  are,  in  the 
estimation  of  the  great  novelist  and  thinker,  words 
without  meaning;  the  ceremonies  of  the  church  are 
senseless  forms;  the  government  of  the  church,  a 
grinding  tyranny.  In  his  reaction  against  the  exist- 
ing church,  the  liberal  Russian  has  gone  to  the  ex- 
treme of  including  what  is  good  and  bad,  wise  and 
foolish,  true  and  false,  in  the  same  condemnation. 
But  for  this,  not  the  revolutionist,  but  the  imper- 
ialized,  fossilized  church,  is  to  blame.  The  church 
has  betrayed  the  cause  of  Jesus  and  the  cause  of  the 
people,  and  the  day  of  reckoning  is  at  hand.  The 
inert  mass  of  the  Russian  people  is  moving  with  the 
slowness,  it  may  be  of  a  glacier,  but,  like  the  glacier, 
it  is  moving  and  grinding  under  its  dead  weight, 
ancient  tyrannies  and  worn-out  customs.  There  is 
more  to  hope  from  Russia  than  from  any  other 
Christian  country  to-day.  Its  reformation  in  the 
church  and  revolution  in  the  state  are  yet  to  come, 
and  when  they  do  come  they  will  be  far  more  radical 
than  the  reformation  and  revolution  in  the  west. 


140  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

In  the  next  generation  we  may  look  to  Russia  for 
a  new  birth  of  religion  and  a  new  birth  of  liberty. 
The  doctrine  of  passive  resistance  and  communistic 
living  have  a  stronger  hold  in  the  great  Empire 
than  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  The  bomb-throw- 
ing nihilist  is  simply  retarding  the  movement  that 
is  at  last  to  make  the  Russian  the  most  Christian 
and  democratic  of  the  nations.  Before  the  present 
century  has  finished  its  course  Russia  will  be  free 
both  in  church  and  state. 

During  the  present  century  we  may  also  expect  a 
great  awakening  throughout  the  whole  eastern 
church.  Influences  are  at  work  loosening  the  iron 
bonds  of  orthodoxy  which  have  cramped  eastern 
Christianity  since  the  days  of  Theodosius ;  and  with 
the  breaking  up  of  orthodoxy  will  come  the  revival 
of  religion  and  the  renewal  of  life.  Already  the 
days  of  Islam  are  numbered.  Mohammedism  is  a 
spent  force.  The  religion  of  Jesus  liberated  from 
the  swathing  bands  of  pseudo  intellectualism  and 
an  effete  ceremonialism  will  reconquer  the  birth- 
place of  Jesus,  and  make  the  countries  of  the  east 
obedient  to  the  faith.  But  it  will  be  the  religion  of 
Jesus,  not  the  religion  of  the  church,  that  will  re- 
generate the  world.  The  love  of  the  Father  and  the 


SUBJECTION  OF  CHURCH  TO  STATE.       141 

love  of  the  brethren  will  bring  peace  to  distracted 
nations  and  churches. 

The  church  in  the  east,  from  the  days  of  Theo- 
dosius,  has  been  simply  a  function  of  the  state,  and 
has  been  used  by  the  state  to  support  the  policy  of 
the  state.  The  church  has  blest  the  armies  of  the 
state,  when  those  armies  have  gone  out  to  lay  waste 
countries,  to  burn  cities,  to  murder  men,  to  ravish 
women,  and  to  enslave  children.  There  is  no  crime 
which  the  church  will  not  condone,  so  only  it  is  done 
in  the  name  of  the  state.  From  Ivan  the  Terrible 
to  the  Czar  Nicholas  the  autocrat  of  Russia  has 
found  in  the  clergy  the  ready  instruments  of  his 
cruelty  and  despotism.  The  clergy  are  dependent 
on  the  Czar  and  dependence  is  the  fruitful  parent  of 
slavery.  When  the  state  and  the  church  are  one  it 
is  always  the  state  that  is  the  one;  the  church  is 
only  a  fraction  of  the  unit.  An  imperial  church  in 
an  imperial  state  must  either  subjugate  the  state, 
or  be  subjugated  by  the  state. 


The  Supremacy  of  the  Church  in 
the  West. 

In  the  year  452,  when  Rome  was  in  danger  of 
destruction  by  the  hosts  of  Attila,  the  Hun,  she 
owed  her  salvation,*  not  to  the  prowess  of  her 
Emperor,  but  to  the  sanctity  of  her  bishop.  The 
Scourge  of  God,  as  Attila  was  called,  had  passed 
through  Germany  and  Gaul,  and  had  left  behind 
him  a  desolate  waste ;  he  crossed  the  Alps,  and  had 
devastated  northern  Italy.  The  city  of  Aquileia, 
then  famous  for  its  commerce  and  its  wealth,  had 
yielded  after  a  stubborn  resistance  and  had  been 
given  over  to  the  rage  and  lust  of  the  Tartar  horde 
that  followed  the  banners  of  Attila  and  the 
barbarians  killed  the  men,  carried  the  women  and 
children  captive,  burned  the  buildings,  threw  down 
the  walls,  and  left  the  city  a  smoking  ruin.  So  com- 
plete was  their  work  of  destruction  that  Aquileia 
from  that  day  ceased  to  exist.  After  the  fall  of 
Aquileia  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  the  march  of 


*Italy  and  Her  Invaders,  T.  Hodgkin,  bk.  2,  chap.  iv. 
[142] 


SUPREMACY    OF    CHURCH   IN    WEST.      143 

Attila  to  Rome.  He  had  only  to  pass  over  the  Ap- 
penines,  and  he  would  find  the  city  which  for  ages 
had  ruled  the  world,  unable  to  offer  the  least  resist- 
ance to  the  invader.  The  only  hope  of  safety  which 
remained  to  the  panic-striken  city  lay  in  the  spell 
which  her  name  still  cast  upon  the  rude  mind  of  the 
barbarian.  For,  though  she  had  lost  her  Empire, 
the  city  of  the  Caesars  had  not  altogether  lost  her 
prestige.  It  was  not  easy  for  men  to  shake  off  that 
fear  and  reverence  for  the  city  of  Rome  which  dur- 
ing the  period  of  her  dominance  had  become  a  habit 
of  mind.  Attila  himself  was  afraid  of  the  city ;  not 
of  her  armies,  for  she  had  none ;  not  of  her  citizens, 
for  they  were  at  his  mercy ;  it  was  the  city  itself  that 
he  feared.  Taking  advantage  of  this  superstitious 
awe,  Rome  sent  a  deputation  of  her  citizens  to 
reason  with  the  Hun,  and  to  persuade  him  to  cross 
the  Alps  and  give  up  his  intention  of  conquering 
Italy.  The  spokesman  of  this  deputation  was  Leo, 
the  Bishop  of  Rome.  So  deeply  did  the  venerable 
appearance  of  the  pontiff  impress  the  barbarian 
leader  that  he  listened  to  his  eloquence,  and  yielded 
to  his  arguments  and  turned  away,  leaving  Rome 
a  little  breathing  time  before  her  final  overthrow. 
This  Leo  was  the  first  of  the  great  bishops  who, 


144  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

during  the  next  thousand  years,  built  up  out  of  the 
ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire  a  dominion  far  more 
wonderful  and  enduring  than  the  dominion  of  the 
Caesars.  In  the  days  of  her  greatness  Rome  gave 
the  world  the  Caesars ;  and  in  the  days  of  her  decline 
she  established  the  rule  of  her  popes.  And  of  the 
two  the  pope  was  and  is  the  mightier  creation. 

As  the  ancient  city  of  Rome  believed  that  it  owed 
its  origin  to  the  favor  and  intervention  of  the  gods, 
and  therefore  was  divine,  so  this  new  institution 
within  the  city  traced  its  origin  directly  to  God. 
The  Bishop  of  Rome  was  the  direct  spiritual  suc- 
cessor and  descendant  of  Peter;  and  Peter  was  the 
Apostle  of  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  to  whom  the  Lord 
had  given  the  keys  of  the  Kingdom  of  heaven,  and 
'upon  whom,  as  upon  a  rock,  He  had  built  His 
church.  It  is  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  Peter 
was  ever  in  Rome  or  not.  It  is  enough  that  before 
the  end  of  the  second  century  the  whole  Christian 
church  believed  that  he  had  been  in  Rome,  and  that 
the  Roman  church,  if  it  did  not  owe  to  him  its  foun- 
dation, was  nevertheless  under  his  Episcopal  rule 
for  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  its  existence.  That 
the  church  of  Rome  should  be  looked  upon  as  the 
most  important  of  all  the  churches  was  the  natural 


SUPREMACY    OF    CHURCH   IN    WEST.      145 

result  of  the  place  which  the  city  held  in  the  world. 
It  was  the  center  of  Roman  life.  It  was  a  saying 
that  all  roads  lead  to  Rome.  From  every  district  of 
the  Empire  men  were  constantly  going  to  or  coming 
from  the  imperial  city.  The  doings  of  the  city  fur- 
nished talk  for  the  world.  Every  movement,  re- 
ligious, political,  and  social,  made  a  home  for  itself 
in  Rome,  that  from  Rome  it  might  reach  out  and 
influence  the  world.  That  Christianity  was  not  an 
exception  to  this  rule  follows  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  new  religion  found  a  soil  rich  for  the  sowing 
of  the  seed  of  truth.*  Rome  was  the  home  of  nearly 
10,000  Jews  who  had  their  dwelling  place  in  the 
quarter  called  the  Trastevere  about  the  base  of  the 
Janiculum.  This  colony  of  the  Hebrews  had  then, 
as  the  Hebrews  have  now  and  always,  an  influence 
far  out  of  proportion  to  their  numbers.  Their  race 
characteristics  have  not  changed  in  all  the  centuries. 
Then,  as  now,  they  were  a  people  apart,  separated 
from  the  world  about  them  by  their  religious  faith 
and  religious  practice.  The  Jews  in  Rome  seem  to 
have  been  severe  and  simple  in  their  life  and 


*Epistle  to  the  Romans,  Paul,  chap.  I. 
REL.&  POL. — 10 


146  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

thought.  They  did  not,  as  the  Jews  in  Alexandria 
and  other  centers  of  Greek  culture,  seek  to  accom- 
modate the  faith  of  their  fathers  to  Greek  ways  of 
thought.  They  held  tenaciously  to  the  traditions 
of  the  elders  and  waited  patiently  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  Israel.  When  the  Christian  apostle  came  to 
Rome  he  found  there  men  and  women  of  the  same 
characteristics,  having  the  same  hopes  and  fears  as 
the  men  of  Judea  and  Galilee.  The  same  aspira- 
tions that  lead  to  the  eager  acceptance  of  the  Mes- 
siahship  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem  gave  to  that  Messiah- 
ship  a  welcome  in  the  city  of  Rome.  In  Rome,  as 
elsewhere,  there  was  a  fringe  of  Gentile  life  attached 
to  the  garment  of  Judaism.  Men  of  every  nation 
listened  with  awe  to  the  teaching  of  the  prophets, 
and  feared  and  reverenced  the  God  of  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob.  It  was  this  Gentile  fringe  that 
yielded  itself  to  the  preaching  of  the  messengers  of 
Christ,  and  it  was  really  out  of  this  fringe  that  the 
apostles  and  prophets  of  the  Lord  made  the  new 
garment  of  Christianity.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
history  of  the  world  more  interesting  to  the  imag- 
ination than  this  movement  in  the  population  in  the 
Trastevere  in  Rome.  We  can  see  as  in  a  moving 
picture  men  of  the  character  of  Peter,  simple  men, 


SUPREMACY    OF   CHURCH   IN    WEST.      147 

conscious  of  a  divine  mission,  moving  in  and  out 
among  the  crowded  population  of  this  obscure 
region  of  the  city;  telling,  almost  whispering,  into 
eager  ears  their  story  of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus, 
of  His  resurrection,  of  His  ascension  into  heaven, 
and  of  His  expected  and  speedy  return  to  judge  the 
world  in  righteousness;  to  cast  down  the  mighty 
from  their  seat,  and  to  exalt  the  humble  and  meek. 
Nowhere  could  such  preaching  make  its  way  as  it 
could  in  this  mass  of  people  who  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  hope  from  the  world  as  it  was.  Nothing  but 
a  change  as  great  as  that  which  the  coming  of 
Christ  would  usher  in  could  satisfy  these  hearts, 
embittered  as  they  were  by  the  hardness  of  their 
lives.  The  apocalyptic  message  of  Christianity  with 
its  crash  of  worlds  was  the  only  message  that  could 
rouse  these  people  from  their  apathy  and  despair. 

The  doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  found  a 
ready  response  in  old  Rome,  cherishing  as  it  did  its 
democratic  instincts.  The  thirst  for  distinction,  the 
horror  of  oblivion  and  annihilation,  were  powerful 
motives  moving  men  to  lay  hold  of  the  hope  that 
was  set  before  them. 

The  preaching  of  Christianity  was  followed  at 
once  by  the  organization  of  the  church.  The  Christ- 


148  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

ian  folk  became  a  peculiar  people,  living  a  singular 
life  in  startling  contrast  with  the  life  of  the  city  in 
which  they  dwelt.  In  Rome,  but  not  of  Rome,  these 
Christians  had  their  meeting  places  in  the  cemeter- 
ies where  the  dead  were  buried.  For  centuries  the 
Roman  church  worshiped  God  in  the  darkness  of 
the  Catacombs.  Those  vast  subterraneous  chambers 
underneath  the  city  that  to-day  astonish  the  visitor 
are  largely  the  work  of  the  primitive  Christian.  In 
them  he  hid  himself  from  the  wrath  of  the  Emperor 
and  the  populace,  in  them  he  set  up  his  altar  and 
offered  his  sacrifice,  and  in  them  he  laid  his  dead  to 
sleep  in  the  Lord  Jesus.  A  people  living  in  this 
way  could  not  help  generating  a  spirit  of  devotion 
that  would  in  time  master  the  world. 

In  its  organization  the  Roman  church  followed 
the  plan  of  the  synagogue,  which  was  the  model  of 
the  church  throughout  the  world.  The  bishop,  the 
presbyters,  and  the  deacons  ministered  to  the  church 
in  government,  in  teaching,  and  in  charity.  The 
bishops  were  the  head  of  the  church,  having  the 
oversight  of  its  affairs;  the  presbyters  were  the 
hands  of  the  church,  breaking  the  bread  of  life ;  the 


SUPREMACY    OP   CHURCH   IN    WEST.      149 

deacons  were  the  feet  of  the  church,  running  upon 
its  errands  of  mercy.* 

From  the  first,  and  of  necessity,  the  bishops  of  the 
church  in  Rome  were  the  leaders  of  the  Christian 
movement  in  the  world.  Being  in  the  shadow  of 
the  imperial  palace,  they  were  the  first  to  suffer 
from  the  outbreaks  of  imperial  wrath.  To  be  chosen 
bishop  of  Rome  in  the  days  of  persecution  was  an 
honor  only  to  those  who  saw  in  death  a  way  to 
glory.  During  the  early  period  of  its  history  the 
average  length  of  an  episcopate  was  eight  years, 
and  to  nearly  all  of  those  who  served  the  church  in 
the  days  of  her  adversity  tradition  assigns  the  crown 
of  martyrdom.  It  was  this  devotion  of  the  Bishops 
of  Rome  to  the  cause  of  Christ  that  gave  them  their 
leadership. 

When  Constantine  gave  peace  to  the  church,  the 
Roman  see  was  already  venerable  in  the  sight  of  all 
Christendom.  Legend  and  history  combined  to 
make  it  the  holy  city  of  the  Christian  world.  Je- 
rusalem the  home  of  Christianity  was  in  ruins. 
Nazareth  and  Bethlehem  were  obscure  provincial 
towns.  It  was  in  Rome  that  the  Christian  imagina- 


*This  perfected  organization  was  the  work  of  the  second 
and  third  centuries. 


ISO  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

tion  created  the  world  of  wonder  and  miracle  in 
which  the  human  mind  was  to  live  for  the  next 
thousand  years.  Already  Jesus  was  exalted  to  the 
right  hand  of  God.  He  was  no  longer  the  Son  of 
Man.  He  was  the  Second  Person  of  the  Holy  Trin- 
ity. He  was  far  above  and  out  of  the  reach  of  man. 
He,  the  intercessor,  needed  someone  to  intercede 
with  Him.  In  Peter  and  Paul  the  church  found 
its  human  origin.  Especially  in  Peter;  for  as  Paul 
was  the  founder  of  Christian  theology,  so  was  Peter 
the  founder  of  the  Christian  church.  The  Bishop 
of  Rome  looked  upon  himself,  not  as  the  successor 
of  Christ,  but  as  the  successor  of  Peter. 

When  the  seat  of  empire  was  removed  from  Rome 
to  Constantinople  it  left  the  church  of  Rome  free  to 
develop  its  own  life  in  accordance  with  its  own 
genius.  The  Bishop  of  Constantinople  was  the 
creature  of  the  Emperor,  the  subservient  instrument 
of  imperial  power.  The  Bishop  of  Rome  was  inde- 
pendent; he  was  more  than  this;  he  was  the  most 
considerable  personage  in  the  city  of  Rome, — its  real 
ruler  and  guide.  He  exercised,  not  only  the  power 
which  came  to  him  from  Peter,  but  he  inherited  all 
the  traditions  and  privileges  of  republican  and  im- 
perial Rome.  He  was  the  successor  both  of  Peter 


SUPREMACY   OF   CHURCH   IN   WEST.      151 

and  of  Caesar.  Unless  we  clearly  grasp  the  fact  that 
the  Roman  church  is  the  heir  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
we  cannot  understand  her  history,  nor  the  history 
of  the  world.  From  the  very  first  the  Roman 
bishops  were  conscious  of  their  double  inheritance. 
In  season  and  out  of  season  they  insisted  that,  as 
bishops  of  Rome  and  successors  of  Peter,  they  were 
entitled  to  the  submission  of  the  Christian  world, 
nor  was  the  Christian  world  slow  to  admit  their 
claim.  The  habit  of  submission  to  Rome  was  a 
part  of  the  Csesarean  heritage  which  came  as  an 
heirloom  to  the  see  of  Rome ;  and  when  to  that  was 
added  the  admitted  primacy  of  Peter  the  way  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  was  made  easy.  He  called  himself 
the  Bishop  of  Bishops,  the  servant  of  servants,  and 
from  the  seventh  century  he  claimed  and  was 
allowed  the  name  of  Papa,  or  Pope  of  all  the  church, 
and  Papa  or  Pope  he  remains  to  the  present  day. 

The  condition  of  the  world,  as  well  as  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  church,  favored  the  pretentions  of  the 
Roman  see.  The  Roman  church  was  the  creation 
of  Divine  Providence.  The  world  needed  the 
church  to  such  a  degree  that  without  the  church  we 
cannot  see  how  the  modern  western  world  could 
have  come  into  existence. 


152  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

With  the  fall  of  the  western  Empire  in  the  year 
476  the  state  in  the  old  Roman  conception  of  the 
word,  ceased  to  be.  There  was  no  longer  any  state 
in  Europe;  nothing  that  could  stand,  about  which 
human  life  could  center,  and  upon  which  human 
society  could  rest.  For  the  next  eight  hundred 
years  Europe  was  in  a  state  of  anarchy.  During 
all  those  ages  there  was  no  center  of  unity,  no  stable 
authority.  There  was  no  cities  of  any  consequence, 
for  the  men  of  those  ages  lived  in  wagons,  and  were 
constantly  on  the  move.  There  were  no  fixed  boun- 
daries between  country  and  country.  Every  month 
saw  a  new  distribution  of  territory,  and  every  de- 
cade the  rise  and  fall  of  a  Kingdom.  The  inhabi- 
tants of  Europe  were  without  a  history,  without  a 
literature,  without  a  home.  The  languages  of  Dante, 
of  Voltaire,  of  Shakespeare  and  Luther,  were  as 
yet  unwritten.  They  existed  only  as  the  illiterate 
speech  of  the  common  people,  and  as  the  uncouth 
jargon  of  the  barbarian. 

Now  in  the  midst  of  this  confusion  there  was  one 
center  of  order,  one  source  of  authority,  one  region 
of  light;  and  this  center  of  order,  this  source  of 
authority,  this  region  of  light,  was  the  Christian 
church,  as  that  church  was  centered  in  the  see  of 


SUPREMACY   OF   CHURCH   IN   WEST.      153 

Rome.  It  is  the  fashion  of  those  who  are  outside 
her  pale  to  ascribe  the  ascendency  of  the  Roman 
church  to  the  guileful  ambition  of  her  pontiffs. 
But  the  student  of  history  knows  that  the  great 
phenomena  of  history  do  not  admit  of  so  simple  an 
explanation.  We  can  as  well  lay  the  6  foot  3  of 
the  Maine  lumberman  to  his  personal  ambition  as 
ascribe  the  dominance  of  the  Roman  see  to  the 
personal  ambition  of  the  Roman  bishops.  Their 
ambition  was  not  the  cause,  it  was  the  consequence, 
of  their  supremacy.  Institutions,  like  individuals, 
are  born,  and  live,  and  die  in  obedience  to  unchange- 
able biological  laws,  and  neither  institution  nor  in- 
dividual, by  taking  thought,  can  add  one  cubit  to 
its  stature. 

Speaking  of  the  reign  of  Leo  I.,  Charles  Gore* 
says :  "Circumstances  were  thrusting  greatness 
upon  the  see  of  St.  Peter;  the  glory  of  the  Empire 
was  passing  into  her  hands,  the  distracted  churches 
of  Spain  and  Africa  harassed  and  torn  in  pieces  by 
barbarian  hordes  and  wearied  with  heresies,  were 
in  no  position  to  assert  independence  in  any  matter, 
and  were  only  too  glad  to  look  to  any  center  whence 
a  measure  of  strength  and  organization  seemed  to 


*Leo  the  Great,  C.  Gore,  chaps,  vi.,  vn. 


154  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

radiate.  And  the  popes  had  not  been  slow  in  rising 
to  welcome  and  promote  the  greatness  with  which 
the  current  and  tendency  of  the  age  was  investing 
them."  So  far  were  the  popes  from  being  the 
authors  of  their  own  greatness  that  we  may  almost 
say  that  the  Papacy  existed,  not  because  of  them, 
but  in  spite  of  them. 

Only  a  very  few  men  of  the  200  and  more  who 
have  occupied  the  see  of  Rome,  have  been  men  of 
marked  ability.  Most  of  them  were  men  of  the 
caliber  of  Polk,  and  Pierce,  rather  than  Washington 
and  Lincoln.  Leo  the  First  was  one  of  these  greater 
men  of  the  Papacy.  He  had  the  zeal  of  a  priest 
combined  with  the  administrative  capacity  of  an 
Augustus.  He  laid  down  the  lines  that  the  Roman 
see  has  followed  ever  since  in  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  its  Empire.  Leo  was  above  all 
things  a  governor  and  an  administrator.  He  had 
a  law  of  ecclesiastical  discipline  and  a  supreme 
canon  of  dogmatic  truth,  and  these  were  his  instru- 
ments to  subdue  a  troubled  world.  He  cast  the 
spell  of  authority  upon  the  mind,  as  well  as  the  will 
and  actions,  of  men.  He  regulated  the  thoughts,  as 
well  as  the  deeds,  of  his  subjects.  The  Popes  of 
Rome  gave  their  haughty  accord  to  the  decrees  of 


SUPREMACY   OF   CHURCH   IN   WEST.      155 

Nice,  Constantinople,  Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon,  and 
gained  for  themselves  the  championship  of  Ortho- 
doxy. They  did  not  waste  their  strength  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  questions  which  tore  the  church  in  the 
east  to  ribbons,  but  they  waited  until  the  discussion 
ended  in  decision,  and  then  they  made  that  decision 
their  own.  They  had  none  of  the  dialectic  restless- 
ness of  the  Greek.  They  were  plain,  practical  men 
of  affairs,  and  managed  the  church  as  their  fathers 
had  managed  the  Republic  and  Empire. 

After  the  death  of  Leo  in  461,  we  do  not  reach 
another  great  Pope  until  the  accession  of  Gregory 
in  590.  If  Leo  was  the  organizer  of  the  Papacy, 
Gregory  was  its  missionary.  The  age  of  Gregory 
was  the  age  of  Catholic  expansion.  Himself  a  man 
of  holy  life  and  consecrated  genius,  he  inspired  the 
whole  western  world  with  his  own  zeal.  It  was 
Gregory  who  sent  missionaries  into  England,  and 
converted  the  Saxon  and  the  Angle  to  the  Catholic 
faith.  He  assumed  as  a  matter  of  right  and  duty 
pastoral  oversight  of  Europe.  More  than  850  of 
his  letters  remain  to  attest  his  pastoral  industry  and 
faithfulness.  He  administered  the  vast  estates  of 


IS6  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  church  with  the  fidelity  of  an  accountant.  His 
sacramentary  is  the  source  of  our  Collects,  and  his 
musical  arrangement  of  the  service  survives  to  this 
present  day  as  the  most  dignified  type  of  sacred 
song. 

For  a  century  and  more  after  the  death  of  Greg- 
ory the  church  felt  the  impulse  of  his  life.  The 
sixth  and  seventh  centuries  was  the  great  mission- 
ary period  of  the  western  church.  During  this  era 
all  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Scandinavian,  were  converted  to  the  faith,  and 
Europe  became  passionately  Catholic  and  Christian. 
Then  began  what  we  call  the  Ages  of  Faith.  The 
belief  in  God,  in  Christ,  in  judgment,  in  heaven,  in 
hell,  in  angels,  in  devils,  was  not  in  that  pale  thing 
that  goes  by  the  name  of  belief  in  the  churches, 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  of  to-day,  but  it  was  an 
overmastering  conviction,  leaving  no  room  for  hesi- 
tation or  doubt.  It  was  especially  this  belief  in  hell 
that  drove  men  by  the  thousand  into  the  wilderness 
to  bewail  their  sins,  that  created  the  character  of  the 
monk  and  the  nun,  and  gave  rise  to  the  monastic 
orders.  Christianity  of  the  seventh,  eighth,  and  four 
following  centuries  took  the  words  of  Christ  liter- 
ally, and  sought  to  obey  them  implicitly.  Men  took 


SUPREMACY    OF   CHURCH   IN    WEST.      157 

the  vows  of  chastity,  poverty,  and  obedience,  and 
surrendered  themselves  without  reserve  to  the  ser- 
vice of  God.  We  cannot  in  this  lecture  treat  at  large 
of  the  history  of  the  monastic  orders.  We  mention 
them  because  the  monastic  orders  were  the  means  by 
which  the  popes  established  their  dominion  over 
Europe.  Every  monastery  was  a  fortress,  every 
monk  was  a  soldier  devoted  to  the  interests  of  Pap- 
acy. During  this  whole  period  it  was  the  one  pur- 
pose of  the  papal  policy  to  make  the  state  simply  a 
function  of  the  church.  In  the  city  of  Rome  the 
bishops  had  acquired  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual 
authority,  and  there  the  civil  was  necessarily  sub- 
ordinate to  the  spiritual  power. 

The  Pope  was  a  priest  first  and  a  magistrate 
afterward.  The  temporal  power  of  the  church  had 
its  origin  in  a  grant  of  territory  by  Pepin,  King  of 
the  Franks,  to  Pope  Stephen  III.  Stephen  had 
fled  from  Rome  to  escape  from  the  hands  of  the 
Lombards,  who  had  established  themselves  in  north- 
ern Italy,  and  were  pressing  toward  Rome  with  the 
intention  of  making  that  city  the  capital  of  their 
Kingdom.  At  the  earnest  solicitation  of  Stephen, 
Pepin  invaded  the  land  of  the  Lombards,  defeated 


158  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

them  in  battle,  and  drove  them  beyond  the  Appe- 
nines.  The  territory  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rome, 
wrested  from  the  Lombards,  was  given  by  the 
Prankish  King  to  the  Pope,  to  be  held  and  enjoyed 
by  the  Apostolic  see  forever.  This  donation  of 
Pepin  was  the  origin  of  the  states  of  the  church, 
which  formed  the  Pope's  patrimony,  and  which  he 
ruled  as  a  temporal  sovereign  until  the  year  1871. 
when  the  states  of  the  church  were  merged  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Italy,  and  Rome  became  the  capital 
of  that  Kingdom.  The  Papal  territory  was  in- 
creased by  a  substantial  gift  made  by  the  son  of 
Pepin,  Karl  the  Great,  to  the  successor  of  Stephen. 
This  King,  better  known  by  his  French  name  of 
Charlemagne,  was  called  into  Italy  to  complete  the 
work  of  delivering  the  Papacy  from  the  fear  of  the 
Lombards.  Karl,  who  was  the  greatest  of  the  me- 
dieval monarchs,  broke  the  power  of  the  Lombards, 
and  added  northern  Italy  to  his  own  dominions. 

At  this  time  an  event  occurred  which  profoundly 
influenced  the  history  of  Europe  for  the  next  thou- 
sand years.  Karl  the  Great  visited  Italy  in  the  win- 
ter of  800.  On  Christmas  eve,  as  he  was  kneeling 
at  mass,  the  Pope,  Leo  III.  placed  upon  his  head 


SUPREMACY   OF   CHURCH   IN   WEST.      159 

the  imperial  crown,  and  he  was  hailed  as  Caesar 
Augustus.  This  revival  of  the  Empire  by  the  act 
of  the  Pope  in  thus  placing  the  crown  on  the  head 
of  the  Prankish  King  was  fraught  with  bitter  con- 
sequences both  to  Italy  and  Germany.  The  German 
monarchs,  following  the  phantom  of  Empire,  neg- 
lected to  consolidate  and  organize  their  own  proper 
Kingdom,  so  that  while  France,  England,  and  Spain 
were  growing  into  well  compacted  nations,  Ger- 
many was  and  remained  until  1870  a  conglomera- 
tion of  petty  dukedoms  owing  nominal  allegiance  to 
the  Emperor,  but  in  reality  independent  each  of  the 
other,  without  any  central  government  to  regulate 
internal  affairs,  or  to  defend  the  German  from  for- 
eign aggression.  Italy,  nominally  the  home  and 
land  of  the  Emperor,  suffered  from  the  same  evils 
that  afflicted  Germany.  Divided  into  a  number  of 
petty  states,  warring  with  one  another,  constantly 
calling  in  the  barbarian  from  beyond  the  Alps  to 
settle  its  family  quarrels,  Italy  was  the  battle  ground 
of  Europe  for  a  thousand  years.  The  Holy  Roman 
Empire  which  Leo  set  up  in  the  person  of  Karl,  and 
which  was  nothing  but  the  ghost  of  the  Empire  of 
the  Caesars,  and  of  which  Voltaire  said  wittily  that 
it  was  neither  holy  Roman  nor  an  empire,  haunted 


160  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  political  life  of  Europe  for  just  a  thousand  and 
six  years.  It  was  created  by  the  act  of  Leo  in  the 
year  800;  it  was  dissolved  by  a  decree  of  Napoleon 
in  the  year  1806.  Germany  and  Italy  had  to  wait 
nearly  a  century  longer  before  they  could  come  to 
their  own.  Both  of  these  countries  were  unified  as 
a  consequence  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war  of  1870. 

This  act  of  Leo  had  a  powerful  influence  upon 
the  relation  of  the  church  and  state.  From  that 
time  the  Popes  began  to  claim  the  right  to  crown 
and  discrown  Emperors  and  Kings.  It  required 
two  hundred  years  for  the  Papacy  to  make  good  its 
claim  to  universal  sovereignty. 

With  the  death  of  Karl  his  Empire  was  dissolved, 
and  western  Europe  fell  once  more  into  anarchic 
confusion.  The  next  two  centuries  are  the  darkest 
and  most  disgraceful  in  the  history  of  western 
Christendom.  For  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  Europe 
was  to  sink  back  into  a  hopeless  irreclaimable  bar- 
barism. The  city  of  Rome  shared  to  the  full  in  the 
general  confusion.  It  was  during  this  period  that 
the  two  houses  of  Colonna  and  Orsini  made  the 
streets  of  Rome  their  battle  ground,  and  divided  the 
city  into  hostile  factions.  The  Papacy  was  the 


SUPREMACY    OF   CHURCH   IN    WEST.      161 

shuttlecock  of  the  contending  parties ;  beaten  to  and 
fro  by  their  battledores,  it  lost  all  dignity  and  all 
authority  within  the  city.  Popes  were  set  up  and 
cast  down  as  this  or  that  party  was  in  the  ascendant, 
until  at  last  the  see  of  Peter  was  in  the  gift  of  the 
most  celebrated  courtesan  of  the  age,  Theodora,  and 
her  equally  depraved  daughters,  Theodora  the 
younger,  and  Mariposa.  That  the  holy  see  should 
have  recovered  its  prestige  after  this  awful  degra- 
dation is  owing  to  the  fact  that  Europe  knew  little 
of  what  was  going  on  in  Rome,  and  to  the  further 
fact  that  Europe  had  no  other  center  of  unity,  no 
other  hope  of  salvation.  When  things  were  at  their 
worst  a  great  revival  of  religion  took  place  in  the 
monasteries.  While  all  the  world  was  given  over 
to  lust  and  rapine,  the  serious  and  the  sin  sick 
fled  from  the  world  as  from  the  wrath  of  God  and 
sought  the  salvation  of  their  souls  in  the  seclusion 
and  sanctity  of  the  monastery.  Among  the  monas- 
teries remarkable  for  severity  of  rule  and  purity  of 
life  none  surpassed  the  Monastery  of  Cluny  in  Bur- 
gundy. The  Emperor,  Henry  III.,  seeking  for  a 
man  to  whom  he  might  intrust  the  government  of  the 
church  with  some  hope  of  its  reformation  and  restor- 
ation fixed  upon  Bruno,  Bishop  of  Toul  as  the  person 
REL.&  POL— II 


162  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

most  likely  to  effect  his  purpose.  Bruno  went  to  the 
city  of  Rome  as  a  simple  priest,  and  would  not  as- 
sume the  office  until  he  was  chosen  by  the  clergy  and 
confirmed  by  the  people  of  his  see  city.  He  would 
owe  his  episcopate,  not  to  the  appointment  of  the 
Emperor,  but  to  the  free  choice  of  his  flock.  With 
Bruno  there  went  to  Rome  as  his  chief  adviser  a 
man  infinitely  greater  than  himself,  who  was  des- 
tined to  inaugurate  and  carry  out  the  reformation 
of  the  church  which  the  Emperor  desired,  and  then 
to  bring  Emperor  and  Empire  into  subjection  to  the 
see  of  Rome.  Hildebrand,  the  monk  of  Cluny,  was 
one  of  those  men  whose  lives  make  epochs  in  the 
world's  history.  Holding  the  office  of  Archdeacon 
of  Rome  during  five  successive  pontificates,  he 
shaped  the  policy  of  the  Papacy  from  1056  to  1122, 
reigning  himself  as  Pope  under  the  name  of  Greg- 
ory VII.  for  thirty-eight  years  from  1074  to  his 
death  in  1122.  Thus  for  sixty-six  years  the  papal 
see  was  under  the  dominion  of  one  great  master 
mind.  Hildebrand  was  a  churchman.  He  saw  in 
the  church  the  only  hope  of  the  world.  He  asserted 
and  enforced  every  claim  that  had  been  made  for  the 
Apostolic  see  since  the  foundation  of  the  church  in 
Rome.  The  Pope,  as  the  successor  of  Peter,  was 


SUPREMACY   OF  CHURCH   IN    WEST.      163 

the  vicar  of  Christ  and  the  vicegerent  of  God. 
He  was  the  actual  living  voice  of  God  in  the  world ; 
he  held  in  his  hand  the  keys  of  the  Kingdom  of 
heaven,  whosesoever  sins  he  remitted  they  were  re- 
mitted, and  whosesoever  sins  he  retained  they  were 
retained.  In  his  warfare  on  behalf  of  the  church 
the  Pope  made  use  of  two  powers,  the  full  resource 
of  which  is  incomprehensible  to  the  modern  mind. 
These  weapons  of  papal  warfare  were  excommuni- 
cation and  the  interdict.  By  excommunication  a 
man  was  cut  off  from  the  congregation  of  God's 
people,  and  sentenced  to  temporal  and  eternal  dam- 
nation. The  excommunicate  was  an  outlaw  and 
outcast.  It  was  a  crime  to  hold  any  intercourse 
with  him  or  to  give  him  so  much  as  a  cup  of  cold 
water ;  and  to  die  excommunicate  was  to  fall  at  once 
and  forever  into  the  hands  of  the  devil,  and  to  burn 
eternally  in  the  fire  prepared  for  this  same  devil  and 
his  angels.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  horror  of  one 
who  was  thus  shut  out  from  the  love  of  God  and  the 
love  of  man.  A  belief  in  the  power  of  the  priest- 
hood to  determine  the  eternal  misery  of  the  human 
soul,  gave  to  the  church  a  mastery  over  mankind 
beside  which  all  other  mastery  is  as  the  little  finger 
of  Solomon  to  the  thigh  of  Rehoboam.  And  we 


164  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

must  remember  that  for  more  than  a  thousand  years 
all  Europe  lived  in  terror  of  the  papal  and  priestly 
curse. 

The  excommunication  was  aimed  at  rebellious  in- 
dividuals; the  interdict  at  recalcitrant  cities  and 
countries.  When  a  city  or  country  offended  the 
papal  majesty,  the  Pope  forbade  the  celebration  of 
the  offices  of  the  church  in  the  place  which  was  sub- 
ject to  his  displeasure.  No  church-bell  called  the 
people  to  prayer,  new-born  children  went  unbap- 
tized,  the  presence  of  Christ  was  taken  from  the 
altar,  the  bride  went  to  an  unblest  marriage  bed, 
and  the  dead  were  laid  in  unhallowed  graves.  Imag- 
ine again,  if  you  can,  the  horror  of  a  community 
under  interdict  that  believed  with  all  its  heart  and 
soul  and  mind  that  its  temporal  and  eternal  salva- 
tion depended  upon  the  due  and  proper  celebration 
of  the  offices  of  the  church,  and  which  accepted  the 
curse  of  the  Pope  as  the  judgment  of  God.  No 
visitation  of  the  plague  was  to  be  compared  in  its 
effect  upon  the  happiness  of  the  people  with  this 
visitation  of  the  wrath  of  the  vicar  of  God. 

The  Popes  won  this  their  authority  over  the 
people  by  using  it  in  the  first  instance  for  the  better 
government  of  the  world  and  the  salvation  of  the 
people. 


SUPREMACY    OF   CHURCH   IN    WEST.      165 

Hildebrand  wielded  this  awful  power  of  the 
church  to  destroy  two  great  evils,  as  he  considered 
them,  which  were  sapping  the  moral  life  of  the 
church  and  the  world.  The  first  of  these  abuses 
was  the  marriage,  or,  as  he  called  it  the  concubin- 
age, of  the  clergy.  He  would  put  between  the 
clergy  and  the  layman  an  impassible  gulf.  He 
would  have  the  clergyman  renounce  his  natural  in- 
stincts and  still  the  strongest  cravings  of  his  heart. 
He,  the  clergyman,  must  leave  father  and  mother, 
and  wife  and  children,  and  houses  and  lands,  and 
devote  himself  as  a  whole  burnt  offering  on  the 
altar  of  the  Lord.  That  Hildebrand  succeeded, 
even  partially,  in  forcing  his  system  upon  the  church 
is  a  tribute  to  his  genius  and  to  his  indomitable  will. 
No  one,  I  think,  will  claim  that  Hildebrand  succeed- 
ed in  securing  the  perfect  chastity  of  the  clerical 
order,  but  the  celibacy  of  that  order  has  been  the 
invariable  rule  from  the  days  of  Hildebrand  to  the 
present  hour;  and  to  that  rule  more  than  to  any 
other  fact  may  be  ascribed  the  solidarity  and  con- 
tinuity of  the  Catholic  church.  For  more  than  a 
thousand  years  that  church  has  never  wanted  men 
and  women  who  were  ready  to  sacrifice  everything 
to  the  cause  of  the  church ;  who  have  no  life  other 


166  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

than  her  life,  no  interests  other  than  her  interests, 
and  it  is  with  this  army  of  devoted  men  and  women 
that  the  world  has  had  to  deal  since  and  before  the 
time  of  Gregory  VII.,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  will 
have  to  deal  until  Christian  time  is  no  more. 

The  other  abuse  which  roused  the  anger  of  Hilde- 
brand,  and  in  the  suppression  of  which  he  gained 
a  decisive  victory  for  the  Papacy,  was  simony  or  the 
sale  of  ecclesiastical  offices.  The  civil  power  in  the 
person  of  the  Emperor,  the  King,  or  the  duke, 
claimed  the  right  to  invest  the  clergyman  into  the 
temporalities  of  his  benefice,  and  until  he  was  so 
invested  the  bishop  or  the  priest  could  not  receive 
any  income  from  his  living.  Large  sums  were  paid 
by  the  clergy  to  secure  this  investiture  until  it  came 
to  pass  that  ecclesiastical  offices  were  subjects  of 
barter,  and  had  a  regular  price  in  the  market.  Hil- 
debrand  struck  at  the  root  of  this  evil  by  denying 
the  right  of  the  layman  to  invest  the  clergyman  into 
his  temporalities,  and  excommunicating  every  lay- 
men who  should  presume  to  so  invest  a  cleric,  and 
every  cleric  who  should  submit  to  such  investiture. 
As  this  decree  of  the  Pope  deprived  the  civil  power 
of  a  large  revenue,  and  as  it  made  the  whole  body 
of  the  clergy  independent  of  the  state,  it  naturally 


SUPREMACY   OF   CHURCH  IN   WEST.      167 

roused  the  opposition  of  the  temporal  authorities. 
The  conflict  that  raged  round  this  question  of  lay 
investiture  went  on  for  more  than  a  century,  and 
when  it  ended  the  substantial  victory  was  with  the 
Papacy.  The  clergy  were  freed  from  the  exactions 
of  the  state  officials;  they  paid  taxes,  not  to  the 
state,  but  to  the  church  only,  and  owed  allegiance  to 
no  one  but  the  Pope.  One  of  the  most  dramatic 
episodes  in  history  is  the  submission  of  Henry  IV., 
Emperor  and  King,  to  Pope  Gregory  VII.  Ex- 
communicated by  the  church,  abandoned  by  his 
army,  forsaken  by  his  people,  this  war  lord  came  to 
Canosa,  in  the  Appenines  where  the  Pope  was  stay- 
ing and  for  three  days  stood  outside  the  palace, 
barefoot  in  the  snow  until  the  haughty  prelate  was 
ready  to  receive  him  and  grudgingly  grant  him  a 
pardon.  This  scene  at  Canosa  made  a  lasting  im- 
pression on  the  imagination  of  Europe.  It  was  an 
unmistakable  sign  of  the  triumph  of  the  Pope. 

After  the  death  of  Hildebrand  his  power  was 
transmitted  to  a  line  of  successors  who  pursued  his 
policy  with  unflinching  determination.  With  the 
reign  of  Innocent  III.,  1198-1216,  the  Papacy 


168  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

reached  its  highest  point  in  power  and  in  glory. 
This  prelate,  chosen  Pope  in  the  prime  of  life,  a  man 
of  commanding  genius  and  unblemished  character, 
was  during  his  pontificate  the  real  ruler  of  Europe. 
He  interfered  in  the  most  minute  details  of  political 
and  domestic  life.  He  excommunicated  kings  and 
laid  nations  under  interdict  if  they  in  any  way 
roused  his  displeasure.  He  consolidated  the  power 
of  the  clergy,  and  made  the  government  of  Europe 
sacerdotal.  His  legates  sat  in  council  with  the 
Kings  and  directed  their  policy.  John  of  England 
yielded  his  crown  to  the  Pandulph,  the  papal  legate, 
and  received  it  back  as  the  Pope's  man.  During 
the  reign  of  Innocent  impetus  was  given  to  the  study 
of  canon  law,  which  was  amplified  into  a  vast  and 
complicated  system.  It  was  the  only  code  of  law 
binding  on  the  clergy,  and  it  interfered  at  every  pos- 
sible point  with  the  lives  of  the  laity.  By  assuming 
to  itself  the  regulation  of  marriage  the  church  laid 
its  hand  upon  the  very  source  of  life,  and  by  its 
power  of  dispensation  was  able  to  bind  or  dissolve 
at  its  will. 

The  power  of  the  popes  in  the  thirteenth  century 
was  far  greater  than  that  of  the  Caesars.    The  state 


SUPREMACY    OF   CHURCH   IN    WEST.      169 

had  become  in  a  large  measure  simply  a  function  of 
the  church.  Princes  were  subordinate  to  priests, 
and  the  Pope  could  say  that  he  was  indeed  the  vicar 
of  that  Christ  who  was  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of 
Lords. 


The  Fall  of  Mediaeval   Church.* 

The  year  1300  was  in  more  senses  than  one  the 
golden  year  of  the  Roman  papacy.  The  long  con- 
flict between  the  imperial  and  papal  powers  had  end- 
ed in  the  triumph  of  the  pope.  The  ruin  of  the  house 
of  Hohenstauffen  had  involved  the  ruin  of  the  em- 
pire. The  last  of  the  seed  of  Barbarossa,  the  gal- 
lant Conradin,  had  died  upon  the  scaffold  in  Naples, 
bequeathing  his  wrongs,  all  that  was  left  him  of 
the  vast  possessions  of  his  fathers,  to  his  kindred 
of  the  house  of  Aragon. 

So  low  was  the  imperial  power  and  dignity  that 
the  reigning  emperor,  Adolph  of  Nassau,  poorest 
and  weakest  of  German  princes,  was  rated  by  the 
pope  like  a  school-boy  for  becoming  the  hired  sol- 
dier of  Edward  of  England. 

The  spiritual,  if  not  the  temporal,  power  of  the 
pope  was  acknowledged  without  dispute  from  one 
end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  A  vast  and  highly 


*This  lecture  was  delivered  before  the  Church  Club  in 
New  York  and  published  in  the  Church  Club  lectures  of 
the  year  1894.  It  is  republished  here  by  permission. 


[170] 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       171 

organized  priesthood  looked  to  him  as  the  sole 
source  of  its  authority.  The  regular  clergy  waited 
upon  his  favor  for  promotion;  the  monastic  orders 
were,  for  the  most  part,  under  his  immediate  ju- 
risdiction, while  the  mendicants  of  S.  Francis  and 
S.  Dominic  preached  him  in  every  hamlet  and  at 
every  cross-road  of  Europe.  The  fear  of  him  and 
the  dread  of  him  was  upon  all  the  nations  of  the 
West.  His  curse  had  ruined  an  empire  and  was 
withering  the  power  of  kings. 

The  Crusades  had  given  into  his  hand  the  sword 
of  the  flesh  as  well  as  the  sword  of  the  Spirit.  He 
had  but  to  call  a  war  holy,  to  grant  general  indul- 
gence to  his  soldiers,  and  to  bless  their  banners, 
and  he  was  followed  by  devoted  armies  that  could 
fight  and  die,  if  they  could  not  fast  and  pray.  Fail- 
ing in  his  effort  to  wrest  the  Holy  Land  from  the 
infidel,  the  pope  had  turned  these,  his  carnal  weap- 
ons, against  heretics  and  personal  enemies  nearer 
home ;  he  preached  his  crusades  indifferently  against 
the  Albigenses  of  Provence  and  the  Colonna  of 
Rome. 

And  in  the  year  1300  a  new  device  was  found  to 
attract  to  Rome  the  homage  and  wealth  of  Europe. 
In  some  mysterious  way  the  news  went  abroad  that 


172  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

whosoever  should,  in  that  last  year  of  the  old  cen- 
tury, visit  the  holy  city  and  worship  at  the  altars 
of  the  Apostles,  would  receive  full  indulgence  and 
pardon  for  all  his  sin.  The  consequence  of  this 
rumor  was  a  mighty  movement  toward  Rome.  On 
the  22d  of  February  the  pope,  by  special  "Bull," 
confirmed  the  belief  of  the  people,  and  the  streets 
of  his  city  were  thronged  with  pilgrims,  and  the 
basilicas  of  the  Apostles  crowded  with  worship- 
pers. It  is  estimated  that  as  many  as  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  strangers  were  in  Rome  on  a 
given  day,  and  more  than  two  millions  visited  the 
city  during  the  Jubilee. 

The  reigning  pope  was  Benedict  Cajetan  of  the 
town  of  Anagni.  His  immediate  predecessor  was 
Peter  Morrone,  that  hermit  of  Abruzzi,  whom  the 
cardinals  had  chosen  as  if  by  inspiration,  after  a 
disgraceful  struggle,  which  had  kept  the  see  of 
Rome  vacant  for  more  than  two  years,  in  the  hope 
that  the  sanctity  of  Peter  would  sweeten  the  air  of 
the  Roman  court.  But  no  sooner  did  the  hermit 
take  his  name  of  Celestine  V.  and  enter  upon  his 
high  and  holy  office,  than  he  found  that  the  papacy 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       173 

had  passed  far  out  of  the  regions  of  piety  into  that 
of  practical  politics.  Frightened  by  his  vast  respon- 
sibilities, instigated  by  the  advice,  if  not  hurried  on 
by  the  wiles  of  Cajetan,  Celestine  resigned  the 
papacy  after  a  reign  of  six  months.  This  resigna- 
tion was  made  in  Naples,  where  the  Pope  was  then 
residing,  and  was  accepted  by  the  College  of  Cardi- 
nals, who,  after  a  negotiation  lasting  for  ten  days, 
entered  into  conclave,  and,  without  further  delay, 
elected  the  ablest  of  their  number,  Benedict  Cajetan, 
Cardinal  Presbyter  of  S.  Martin,  to  the  vacant  see. 

In  a  few  days  the  newly  elected  pontiff  was 
crowned,  assuming  the  name  of  Boniface  VIII., 
and  hurried  away  to  Rome.  He  carried  in  his  train 
Charles,  King  of  Naples,  and  Charles  Martel,  his 
son,  King  of  Hungary.  As  the  Pope  neared  the 
city,  the  people  came  forth  to  meet  him  with  ban- 
ners and  with  music,  and  his  entrance  was  like  an 
ancient  triumph.  The  two  kings  led  his  horse  by 
the  bridle  and  afterward  waited  on  him  at  table. 

The  pope  was  then  at  the  summit  of  earthly 
greatness.  He  was  by  far  the  most  considerable 
personage  in  Europe,  if  not  in  the  world;  his  only 
rival,  the  emperor,  he  had  reduced  to  insignificance, 
while  the  kings  of  the  West  had  not  yet  tried  their 


174  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

strength  against  him.  But  his  was  not  the  glory 
of  the  morning,  it  was  the  passing  glory  of  the  even- 
ing, the  splendor  of  a  sun  that  was  going  down. 

When  Boniface  entered  upon  his  office  he  found 
three  centres  of  disturbance :  In  Rome  the  Colonna 
stood  aloof,  the  Sicilians  were  in  rebellion,  and  the 
King  of  France  was  sullen. 

From  the  eleventh  century  the  Colonna  had  been 
the  strongest  and  wealthiest  of  Roman  families. 
The  Orsini  were  its  only  rivals  in  riches  and  in  in- 
fluence: it  had  its  strongholds  within  and  without 
the  city;  it  allied  itself  by  marriage  to  royal  and 
imperial  blood;  it  gave  popes  and  cardinals  to  the 
Church.  At  the  election  of  Boniface  two  cardinals 
of  the  family,  James,  and  Peter  the  nephew  of 
James,  had  been  the  last  to  give  their  consent ;  they 
had  even  hinted  that  the  election  itself  might  be  il- 
legal. The  resignation  of  Celestine  was  without 
precedent  in  the  history  of  the  papacy.  It  was 
whispered  in  the  conclave  and  soon  came  to  be  the 
talk  of  the  street  that  a  pope  could  not  resign.  Hav- 
ing once  clothed  himself  with  the  awful  power  of 
the  vicar  of  Christ,  he  could  no  more  resign  that 
power  than  God  Himself  could  resign  His  justice 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       175 

and  his  mercy.    And  the  true  pope  was  not  in  Rome 
but  in  Abruzzi. 

These  evil  reports  Boniface  traced  or  thought  he 
traced,  to  the  lips  of  the  Colonna.  He  summoned 
them  to  his  council.  They  refused  to  obey,  openly 
maintaining  that  he  was  no  true  pope;  asserting 
that  Celestine  was  pope  and  only  on  the  death  of 
Celestine  could  his  successor  be  elected.  The  pope 
answered  their  defiance  by  degradation  and  excom- 
munication; he  deprived  the  cardinals  of  their  hats 
and  cut  off  the  whole  Colonna  family  from  the 
communion  of  the  Church.  The  Colonna  offered 
to  submit  to  the  pope,  but  he  would  not  receive  their 
submission,  except  they  would  surrender  all  their 
strongholds  both  within  and  without  the  city  and 
throw  themselves  upon  his  mercy.  This,  naturally, 
they  refused  to  do,  and  Boniface  preached  a  crusade 
against  them,  he  tore  down  their  houses,  stormed 
their  castles,  destroyed  their  chief  city,  Prenestre, 
and  drove  the  family  to  take  refuge  with  the  King 
of  France.  One  member  of  the  family,  Sciarra 
Colonna,  was  taken  captive  by  the  Saracens  and  he 
concealed  his  identity  lest  they  should  deliver  him 
to  Boniface,  as  he  preferred  the  galleys  of  the  in- 
fidel to  the  dungeons  of  the  true  believer.  He  finally 


176  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

escaped  into  France,  from  whence  he  returned  to 
take  vengeance  on  the  persecutor  of  his  family. 
The  pope  had  made  a  fatal  mistake,  he  had  angered 
but  not  destroyed  these  doubters  of  his  title. 

Here  is  not  the  place  to  unravel  the  interesting 
and  intricate  history  of  Sicily.  Its  exposed  posi- 
tion has  always  made  it  an  easy  conquest.  It  had 
seen  Carthaginian,  Greek,  Roman  and  Saracenic 
masters.  In  the  tenth  century,  the  Norman  added 
it  to  the  number  of  his  conquests  and  founded  there 
one  of  his  numerous  kingdoms.  Early  in  the  thir- 
teenth century  the  line  of  Norman  kings  ended  in 
Constance,  wife  of  the  Emperor  Henry  V.,  son 
of  Barbarossa.  Henry  claimed  the  Island  of  Sicily, 
together  with  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  in  the  right  of 
his  wife,  and  what  Henry  claimed  he  conquered. 
He  left  the  kingdoms  of  Naples  and  of  Sicily  to  his 
wonderful  son,  Frederick  II.,  who  made  this  home 
of  his  mother  his  home,  and  ruled  Germany  and  the 
empire  from  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

It  was  in  their  long  contest  with  Frederick  that 
the  popes  claimed  the  kingdoms  of  Naples  and  Sicily 
as  a  fief  of  the  papacy  and  granted  them  first  to 
Richard  of  Cornwall,  and  afterwards  to  Charles 
of  Anjou  and  Provence.  After  the  death  of  Fred- 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       177 

erick,  while  his  son  Conrad  was  in  Germany,  striv- 
ing to  secure  the  empire,  and  Manfred,  natural  son 
of  Frederick,  had  usurped  and  was  reigning  over 
Naples  and  Sicily,  Charles  invaded  the  kingdom, 
Manfred  was  defeated  and  slain,  and  the  power 
of  the  French  established  both  on  the  main  land 
and  in  the  island.  But  in  Sicily  that  power  was  of 
short  duration.  The  extreme  and  brutal  tyranny 
of  the  French  stirred  the  southern  blood  to  mad- 
ness. An  insult  to  a  lady  of  Palermo  was  the  imme- 
diate occasion  of  that  terrible  uprising  known  as 
the  Sicilian  Vespers,  which  left  not  a  Frenchman 
alive  on  the  island,  whom  the  Sicilians  could  find 
and  kill.  Conrad  V.,  son  of  Frederick  II.,  was 
dead.  His  son,  the  little  Conrad,  perished  in  his 
gallant  effort  to  regain  the  kingdom  of  his  fathers 
and  there  was  no  heir  to  the  great  house  of  Hohen- 
stauffen,  except  Constance,  daughter  of  Manfred, 
who  was  married  to  Peter  of  Aragon.  To  Aragon 
the  Sicilian  turned  for  help  and  offered  their  crown 
to  Peter,  the  husband  of  Constance.  He  accepted 
it  and  granted  it  in  his  turn  to  his  brother  James, 
with  a  reversion  in  favor  of  his  younger  brother 
Frederick.  This  Frederick  of  Aragon  was  the  real 
ruler  of  Sicily  until  his  death.  James  soon  suc- 
REL.  &  POL.— 12 


178  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

ceeded  his  brother  Peter  on  the  throne  of  Aragon 
and  left  Frederick  to  govern  Sicily. 

When  Boniface  became  pope  he  succeeded  in 
making  peace  between  James  of  Aragon  and 
Charles  of  Naples,  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  peace 
being  that  James  should  cede  his  rights  in  Sicily 
to  Charles.  But  in  making  this  peace  the  pope  reck- 
oned without  Frederick  and  the  Sicilians.  The 
Sicilians  he  treated  as  his  vassals,  to  be  granted  to 
whom  he  would,  and  Frederick  he  tried  to  beguile 
by  offering  him,  with  the  hand  of  the  titular  Em- 
press of  Constantinople,  the  empire  of  the  East.  But 
Frederick  thought  a  kingdom  in  the  hand  worth 
an  empire  in  the  bush,  and  held  fast  to  his  tight 
little  island,  while  the  Sicilians  would  rather  die 
than  admit  the  French  again  to  their  homes. 

Frederick  defied  the  pope  and  the  two  kings, 
though  one  was  his  brother.  His  great  Admiral 
Roger  Loria  defeated  the  combined  papal  and  Nea- 
politan fleets  and  drove  them  from  the  sea.  And 
when  Loria  was  seduced  from  his  allegiance  by  the 
pope,  Frederick,  though  no  longer  invincible  at  sea, 
was  unconquerable  on  land.  The  pope  thundered 
out  against  him  every  curse  to  be  found  in  the  ar- 
senal of  Rome,  but  Frederick  let  him  curse,  and 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       179 

went  on  beating  Charles  of  Naples  just  the  same. 
The  pope  called  Charles  of  Valois  to  aid  his  feeble 
kinsman  of  Naples,  but  this  Frenchman  did  noth- 
ing but  devastate  Italy,  and  increase  the  hatred 
that  was  gathering  about  the  head  of  Boniface,  and 
went  home  leaving  Frederick  in  secure  possession 
of  Sicily. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  story  of  Sicily  because  in 
that  story  is  the  secret  of  the  papal  downfall.  In 
their  long  effort  to  wrest  Naples  and  Sicily  from 
the  Hohenstauffen,  the  popes  had  wasted  their  spir- 
itual and  temporal  strength.  They  delivered  them- 
selves from  the  fear  of  one  master,  only  to  find 
themselves  given  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  into 
the  keeping  of  another. 

In  the  break-up  of  the  Frankish  empire,  which 
resulted  in  the  foundation  of  the  Kingdom  of 
France,  that  kingdom  was  ever  the  favorite  of 
Rome.  In  their  long  and  bitter  struggle  with  the 
empire,  it  was  to  France  that  the  popes  looked  for 
succor,  and  that  aid  was  paid  for  by  many  special 
grants  and  dispensations. 

But  now  that  the  empire  no  longer  threatened 
his  autocracy,  the  pope  determined  to  humble  this 


i8o  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

growing  power  in  the  West,  which  presuming  on 
his  favor  had  not  consulted  his  dignity. 

The  reigning  King  of  France  was  Philip  IV., 
known  to  history  as  Philip  the  Fair.  This  king  was 
one  of  those  men  whose  lives  strike  the  midnight 
hour  that  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  day.  In 
his  time  and  under  his  hand,  three  institutions  which 
had  ruled  the  life  and  filled  the  heart  of  Christian 
Europe  for  three  hundred  years  and  more  fell  into 
ruin. 

The  stars  in  their  courses  fought  with  Philip  in 
his  work  of  destruction.  Victory  and  defeat  alike 
helped  him  off  with  the  old  and  on  with  the  new. 
His  armies  met  with  a  terrible  disaster  under  the 
walls  of  Courtrai  and  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 
nobility  of  France  perished  on  that  field  of  spurs. 
But  the  death  of  the  nobility  was  the  life  of  the  king. 
The  wars  with  England  and  with  Flanders  did  for 
France  what  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  did  for  England. 
In  those  wars  the  great  families  were  swept  away, 
and  with  them  that  institution  which  was  the  source 
of  their  power  and  which  they,  in  turn,  upheld  by 
their  strength.  That  graded  system  which  came  in 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       181 

with  the  Goth  and  the  Frank,  in  which  the  king 
was  only  a  chief  of  chieftains,  his  power  resting  on 
that  of  the  great  nobles  next  below  him,  did  not 
survive  the  fatalities  of  the  fatal  fourteenth  century. 
In  England,  France  and  Spain,  the  king  and  the 
people  absorbed  the  power  of  the  nobles;  in  Italy 
and  Germany  the  nobles  and  the  cities  seized  upon 
the  power  of  the  king.  After  Courtrai,  the  King  of 
France  could  no  longer  rest  upon  the  great  feudal 
lords,  for  the  heads  of  their  houses  were  for  the 
most  part  little  boys  and  girls.  It  was  no  longer 
a  high-spirited  and  reluctant  nobility  whom  the  king 
led  to  the  battle,  it  was  a  hired  and  professional  sol- 
diery. From  that  day  to  this,  the  battles  of  Europe, 
with  rare  exceptions,  have  not  been  fought  with  love 
and  loyalty,  but  with  muscle  and  money.  Philip 
found  the  feudal  system  old  and  weak,  he  left  it 
a  ruin. 

Chivalry  was  in  his  day  already  a  matter  for  sport. 
The  knight  errant  was  the  favorite  butt  of  the  court 
fool.  What  little  life  was  left  in  that  one  time 
beautiful  institution  found  shelter  in  the  great  lay 
orders  of  the  Knights  of  the  Temple  and  the 
Knights  of  the  Hospital  of  S.  John.  But  these  or- 
ders were  themselves  falling  into  dissolution;  they 


182  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

were  no  longer  fulfilling  the  purpose  of  their  crea- 
tion. It  is  not  necessary  nor  possible  to  believe  the 
awful  charges  which  were  brought  against  the  Tem- 
plars by  the  king.  One  charge  was  sufficient.  They 
were  rich  and  the  king  was  poor,  and  Philip  was  not 
at  all  nice  in  his  ways  of  getting  money;  he  would 
debase  the  coin,  draw  the  teeth  of  a  Jew,  or  burn 
a  Templar,  so  only  he  might  have  the  money  to 
carry  on  his  wars.  And  because  the  Templars  were 
false  to  their  ideal  they  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the 
rapacious  tyranny  of  the  king.  The  destruction  of 
the  order  of  the  Temple  was  the  last  of  Chivalry. 
It  perished  in  the  ashes  of  Molay. 

But  it  was  in  the  order  of  Providence  that  Philip 
should  fight  a  fiercer  battle  and  win  a  more  far- 
reaching  victory.  He  was  the  avenger  of  emperors 
and  kings  upon  popes  and  priests. 

It  was  a  question  of  money  that  led  to  the  quar- 
rel between  Philip  and  Boniface  which  ended  in  the 
captivity  of  the  papacy.  Philip's  empty  treasury 
was  ever  crying  for  more,  and  he  looked  with  en- 
vious eyes  upon  the  vast  possessions  of  the  Church 
and  grieved  his  heart  over  the  stream  of  gold  and 
silver  that  flowed  from  France  to  Rome.  After  tax- 
ing everything  else  he  determined  to  tax  the  Church, 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       183 

and  demanded  of  the  clergy  a  fiftieth  of  their  reve- 
nues. This  act  of  the  king  the  pope  considered 
to  be  an  invasion  of  his  rights,  and  in  his  wrath 
he  issued  his  "Bull"  Clericis  Laicos,  in  which  he 
asserted  the  broad  principle  that  no  temporal  ruler 
had  any  right  to  impose  any  tax  upon  the  property 
of  the  Church,  and  he  excommunicated  every  prince 
or  State  that  should  levy  such  a  tax,  and  every  eccle- 
siastic who  should  presume  to  pay  it  without  the 
permission  of  the  pope.  This  "Bull"  was  couched 
in  language  insulting  to  the  laity  in  general  and  to 
the  King  of  France  in  particular.  The  king  an- 
swered the  papal  "Bull"  with  a  decree  no  less  per- 
emptory, forbidding  the  export  from  his  kingdom 
of  gold  and  silver  coin  and  military  stores  without 
the  king's  consent.  This  cut  off  a  chief  source  of 
papal  revenue,  and  the  pope  was  forced  to  temporize. 
Philip  could  get  along  more  easily  without  the  pope's 
communion  than  he  without  Philip's  gold.  The 
pope  hastened  to  explain  that  he  did  not  mean  to 
forbid  the  payment  of  feudal  imposts  or  voluntary 
donations  of  the  clergy,  or  taxes  imposed  with  the 
pope's  consent.  He  still  held  that  the  pope  had  ex- 
clusive jurisdiction  over  all  Church  men  and  Church 
property,  and  declared  Philip  excommunicate  for 


184  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

intruding  into  that  jurisdiction.  Philip  answered 
with  force,  that  if  he  were  to  fight  the  battles  and 
defend  the  property  of  the  Church,  the  Church  must 
in  all  justice  pay  part  of  the  expense.  And  there 
the  quarrel  rested.  Philip  had  his  money  and  the 
pope  did  not  enforce  his  excommunication,  and  there 
was  truce  between  France  and  Rome.  But  it  was 
only  that  the  combatants  might  breathe  themselves 
for  the  death-struggle.  Between  these  there  was 
an  irrepressible  conflict.  Philip  was  set  with  all 
the  force  of  his  arrogant  will  upon  being  sole  master 
in  France,  while  Boniface  with  fiercer  will  was  de- 
termined to  be  master  of  France,  Philip  and  all  the 
world. 

In  the  year  1300,  when  pilgrims  from  every  land 
did  him  homage,  the  heart  of  Boniface  was  filled 
with  that  desire  for  universal  dominion  which  makes 
men  mad.  If  he  was  the  vicar  of  God  on  earth, 
he  was  the  vicar  of  God,  with  divine  right  to  rule 
over  both  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men,  and  he  could 
not  bear  that  the  eldest  son  of  the  Church  should 
dispute  his  right  to  dominion,  and  he  was  minded 
to  punish  that  son  and  make  him  obedient  to  his 
spiritual  father. 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       185 

But  Philip  was  in  no  filial  nor  compliant  mood. 
He  demanded  homage  of  the  Vicomte  of  Nar- 
bonne  and  the  Bishop  of  Magelounne,  both  liege- 
men of  the  pope,  and  when  they  refused  he  cast 
them  into  prison.  Enraged  at  this,  Boniface  sent 
his  legate,  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers,  to  rebuke  the 
king  for  his  rebellious  conduct.  The  Bishop  was 
insolent  and  Philip  placed  him  under  arrest  and 
sent  him  to  keep  company  with  Narbonne  and 
Magelounne.  The  pope  then  issued  his  "Bull" 
Ausculta  Fill,  upbraiding  Philip  in  the  stern  tones 
of  a  master.  This  "Bull"  Philip  burned  amidst 
the  applause  of  his  people  in  the  streets  of  Paris. 

In  his  contest  with  the  pope  the  king  was  forced 
to  appeal  to  the  people.  For  the  first  time  he  as- 
sembled the  States  General,  calling  representatives 
of  the  common  people — men  of  the  third  estate — to 
sit  with  the  nobles  in  the  council  of  the  king.  There 
were  three  new-born  forces  fighting  with  and  for 
Philip  that  Boniface  knew  not  of.  They  were  the 
spirit  of  nationalism,  the  power  of  secular  learning 
and  the  might  of  worldly  wealth.  Philip  set  the 
nation  against  the  Church;  the  lawyer  against  the 
clergy;  the  merchant  against  the  monk;  and  under 
his  leadership  these  gained  a  victory  which  has 


:86  .  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

given  them  the  dominion  of  the  world  even  to  this 
day. 

The  emperors  were  feeble  in  the  presence  of  the 
pope  because  they  had  no  firm  foundation  to  rest 
upon.  Their  empire  was  an  idea  rather  than  a  fact ; 
their  dominion  in  the  air  rather  than  upon  the  earth. 
They  were  titular  lords  over  many  nations  and 
hardly  masters  of  one.  They  could  not  appeal  to 
love  of  home  and  country,  because  they  themselves 
had  no  home  nor  country.  The  Swabian  emperor 
was  a  stranger  in  his  own  capital  city  of  Rome.  But 
not  so  the  King  of  France ;  he  was  a  Frenchman  who 
ruled  over  Frenchmen  and  he  could  cry  to  them  in 
their  own  tongue,  Shall  we  the  people  of  France  be 
subject  to  an  Italian  priest?  And  with  one  consent 
the  people  answered,  No — we  will  be  ruled  by  our 
own  king  and  by  our  own  laws.  The  nation  became 
conscious  of  itself  in  this  quarrel  with  Boniface. 

The  very  clergy  yielded  to  the  new  spirit  that  was 
abroad  in  the  earth.  They  had  to  yield  because 
virtue  had  gone  out  of  them.  They  were  no  longer 
what  they  had  been.  Once  they  were  the  only  men 
of  learning  in  the  world;  their  lips  kept  knowledge 
and  the  people  came  to  them  for  wisdom.  They  had 
created  and  then  interpreted  that  vast  volume  of 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       187 

canon  law  by  which  the  popes  ruled  in  the  earth. 
But  in  the  days  of  Philip  they  were  opposed  by  a 
body  of  men  as  learned  and  far  more  eager  than 
themselves.  The  University  of  Bologna  had  sent 
into  every  nation  the  students  and  the  advocates 
of  the  civil  law.  These  found  in  the  institutes  and 
pandects  of  Justinian  every  warrant  for  the  king  as 
the  head  of  the  State  and  no  warrant  for  the  pope's 
temporal  authority.  In  the  days  of  Justinian  the 
pope  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  taxes.  And  the 
lawyers,  being  the  new  men  were  stronger  and 
fiercer  than  the  clergy  and  beat  them  in  their  own 
chosen  field. 

And  then  this  king  had  with  him  the  merchants, 
the  men  of  wealth.  Before  the  crusades  there  had 
been  little  or  no  wealth  in  Western  and  Northern 
Europe.  There  had  been  a  rude  plenty  to  eat  and 
drink,  but  no  luxuries  or  refinements  of  life.  But 
the  crusades  opened  the  East  to  the  West,  and  silks 
and  spices  came  from  the  Levant  to  Venice  and 
from  thence  were  sold  to  the  nations  of  the  North. 
And  then  the  cities  which  were  the  home  of  the 
merchant  began  to  grow  stronger  than  the  castle  of 
the  noble  and  the  convent  of  the  monk,  and  the  purse 
of  the  merchant  to  outweigh  the  sword  of  the  knight 


i88  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

and  the  missal  of  the  priest;  and  the  merchant  in 
this  fight  was  with  the  king. 

Ignorant  of  the  new  and  mighty  forces  arrayed 
against  him,  Boniface  chose  this  moment  to  make 
such  claims  for  himself  and  for  his  office  as  had 
never  been  made  in  the  earth.  To  settle  at  once 
and  forever  the  unlimited  power  of  the  pope  over  all 
men  both  in  things  spiritual  and  things  temporal,  he 
issued  his  famous  bull  Unam  Sanctam  Ecclesiam* 
In  this  bull  he  claims  for  himself  and  for  his  office 
absolute  dominion  over  the  lives  and  thoughts  of 
men.  He  was  nothing  else  than  God  on  earth; 
whom  he  would  he  set  up  and  whom  he  would 
he  cast  down.  He  commanded  the  two  swords,  the 
sword  of  the  flesh  as  well  as  the  sword  of  the  spirit. 
The  one  he  wielded  directly;  the  other  indirectly, 
the  one  by  his  own  hand,  the  other  by  the  hand  of 
princes  subject  to  his  will. 

Boniface  and  his  immediate  predecessors  were  all 
or  nearly  all  that  he  claimed  them  to  be.  But  the 
days  of  Cajetan  were  not  as  the  days  of  Hildebrand, 
as  Boniface  found  to  his  cost.  Having  published 
the  bull  Unam  Sanctam  the  pope  retired  to  Anagni 
that  he  might  prepare  and  fulminate  against  the 


*Henderson  Doc.  Middle  Ages,  pp.  434,  435. 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       189 

King  of  France  the  last  terrors  of  the  Church ;  the 
excommunication,  the  interdict  and  the  crusade. 

News  of  these  his  hostile  intentions  reached 
France,  and  two  of  the  king's  partisans,  Sciarra 
Colonna  and  William  of  Nogaret,  without  waiting 
for  instructions  from  Philip,  hurried  over  the  Alps 
and  down  through  Italy  with  three  hundred  horse 
at  their  back,  and  before  the  people  of  Anagni  knew 
what  was  going  on  had  taken  the  city  and  seized 
the  person  of  the  pope.  Boniface  did  not  quail 
before  them.  Dressed  in  his  full  pontificals,  he  re- 
ceived them  with  an  angry  dignity  that  became  his 
office  and  his  character.  But  his  enemies  hated  the 
man  too  deeply  to  be  awed  by  the  pope.  They 
treated  him  with  great  violence.  Nogaret  demanded 
a  full  release  for  the  king  from  all  censures  of  the 
Church,  which,  when  the  pope  refused,  it  is  said  that 
Sciarra  Colonna  smote  him  in  the  face.  For  three 
days  Anagni  was  given  over  to  violence,  and  the 
pope  was  a  prisoner  in  his  own  house.  On  the 
third  day  the  people  rose  up  and  drove  the  invaders 
from  the  city  and  delivered  the  pope.  Boniface 
went  immediately  to  Rome;  meditating  vengeance, 
but  only  to  die  in  a  rage ;  and  with  him  died  forever 
the  political  and  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Bishop 


igo  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

of  Rome.  From  that  day  to  this  the  pope  has  been 
a  disturbing,  but  never  controlling,  power  in  the 
political  life  of  Europe.  Little  by  little  his  dominion 
has  been  taken  away,  until  he  is  nothing  else  than 
a  private  citizen  of  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  and  his 
spiritual  supremacy  is  denied  and  rejected  by  the 
most  powerful  and  intelligent  of  his  former  sub- 
jects. 

Ten  days  after  the  death  of  Boniface  the  fright- 
ened cardinals  got  together  and  elected  Nicholas 
Boccasini,  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Ostia,  to  the  vacant 
see. 

Nicholas  assumed  the  name  of  Benedict  XL, 
which  was  the  Christian  name  of  Boniface ;  the  new 
pope  thus  declaring  his  purpose  of  sustaining  the 
policy  and  avenging  the  wrongs  of  his  predecessor. 

All  the  princes  wrote  to  congratulate  the  pope 
upon  his  promotion,  none  more  cordially  than 
Philip ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  there  might  be  peace  be- 
tween the  pope  and  the  king.  The  pope  quietly  re- 
tired from  the  advanced  position  of  Boniface ;  he  did 
not  reaffirm  the  bull  Unam  Sanctam,  and  he  did 
release  Philip  from  the  censure  of  the  Church.  But 
with  this  the  king  was  not  satisfied.  He  wanted  not 
pardon  but  justification.  To  justify  himself  he  must 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       191 

condemn  Boniface.  If  Cajetan  were  a  good  pope, 
exercising  lawful  authority,  then  Philip  had  been 
guilty  of  a  great  crime,  he  had  outraged  and  slain 
the  Lord's  annointed. 

Philip  pressed  the  pope  for  the  condemnation  of 
Boniface. 

Not  only  did  the  pope  refuse  this,  but  he  pro- 
ceeded to  anathematize  in  the  strongest  language 
known  to  spiritual  censure  all  who  were  in  any  way 
concerned  in  the  affair  of  Anagni.  This  placed 
Philip  again  under  condemnation,  and  another  bit- 
ter war  would  have  followed  had  Benedict  lived. 
But  this  mild  man  was  not  equal  to  the  task  of  re- 
constituting the  papacy.  It  was  too  much  for  his 
physical  strength.  He  died  after  a  pontificate  of 
eight  months. 

The  first  terror  of  Anagni  having  passed  away, 
the  cardinals  gave  free  play  to  their  political  pas- 
sions in  the  election  of  his  successor.  The  college 
was  equally  divided  between  the  French  and  Roman 
interest,  and  for  ten  months  no  election  was  possi- 
ble. The  student  of  papal  history  must  remark  with 
curiosity  these  vacancies  in  the  papal  office  and 
wonder  how  the  body  survived  so  long  without  its 
head.  After  this  delay  an  agreement  was  made  by 


IQ2  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  contending  parties,  looking  to  a  close  of  the 
contest.  It  was  decided  that  the  Roman  party 
should  choose  the  names  of  three  Churchmen  from 
beyond  the  Alps,  and  for  one  of  these  the  French 
party  would  vote  and  so  put  an  end  to  the  scandal 
of  a  prolonged  vacancy. 

Among  the  names  chosen  was  that  of  Bernard  de 
Goth,  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  a  creature  of  Boni- 
face, and  a  sworn  enemy  of  Philip.  But  the  French- 
men knew  their  man.  They  sent  a  secret  message, 
post  haste  to  Philip,  and  Philip  sent  word  to  Ber- 
nard to  meet  him  for  a  private  interview  in  an  ab- 
bey, in  a  wood  near  S.  John  De  Angelli.  Then 
Philip  made  known  to  the  astonished  archbishop 
that  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  make  him  pope.  But 
before  he  could  do  this  he  must  be  assured  of  the 
loyalty  and  fidelity  of  the  man  who  was  now  his 
subject,  but  who  might  upon  promotion  deem  him- 
self his  master.  The  archbishop  made  every  pro- 
testation of  utter  devotion  to  the  person  and  inter- 
ests of  the  king,  and  these  two  made  a  compact. 
Philip  would  use  his  interest  and  secure  the  election 
of  Bernard,  on  condition :  First,  that  Bernard, 
when  pope,  should  release  Philip  from  all  censures 
which  he  had  incurred  in  his  dispute  with  Boniface ; 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       193 

second,  that  he  should  restore  to  his  favor  all  who 
had  in  any  way  been  concerned  in  the  proceedings 
against  that  pope;  third,  that  he  should  condemn 
the  memory  of  Boniface ;  fourth,  that  he  should  re- 
store the  Colonna  to  their  dignities,  and  promote 
to  the  college  of  cardinals  such  persons  as  the  king 
should  name;  fifth,  that  he  should  give  to  the  king 
a  tenth  of  the  revenues  of  the  Church  for  five  years. 
A  sixth  condition  was  kept  secret  to  be  demanded 
of  the  pope  at  the  pleasure  of  the  king.  This  agree- 
ment made,  the  king  sent  his  messenger  with  all 
speed  back  to  Rome,  and  upon  his  arrival  Bernard 
de  Goth,  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  was  chosen  pope, 
and  so  became  the  successor  of  S.  Peter  and  the 
vicar  of  Christ  on  earth. 

The  new  pope  summoned  the  cardinals  to  cross 
the  Alps  and  meet  him  in  Lyons,  where  he  was 
crowned,  taking  the  name  of  Clement  V.  Clement 
made  haste  to  carry  out  his  contract  with  the  king : 
he  released  Philip  from  all  the  censures  of  the 
Church ;  he  granted  him  a  tenth  of  the  Church's  rev- 
enue; he  restored  to  papal  favor  all  engaged  in  the 
outrages  at  Anagni,  except  Sciarra  Colonna  and 
William  of  Nogaret,  upon  whom  he  laid  a  slight  pen- 
ance; but  he  would  not  condemn  the  memory  of 
REL.  &  POL.— 13 


194  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Boniface,  and  his  whole  pontificate  was  spent  in  a 
miserable  struggle  to  avoid  that  fatal  blow  to  the 
pretensions  and  power  of  the  papacy. 

To  escape  from  the  immediate  jurisdiction  of 
Philip,  Clement  transferred  the  papal  residence  from 
Lyons  to  Avignon.  The  poor  priest  had  in  his 
heart  that  love  for  France  which  is  the  strongest 
passion  with  every  Frenchman,  and  he  had  also 
that  love  of  ease  and  pleasure  which  is  so  natural 
to  the  Gascon.  He  could  not  bear  to  exile  himself 
from  France,  still  less  could  he  bear  the  turbulence 
of  Rome.  So  he  chose  for  the  spiritual  capital  of 
Christendom  the  softest  and  lovliest  spot  in  the 
world. 

Just  outside  the  boundaries  of  France,  in  the  coun- 
try of  Provence,  which  was  under  the  rule  of 
Charles  of  Naples,  the  pope  found  his  Zoar,  his  lit- 
tle city  of  refuge.  Avignon  lay  upon  the  left  bank 
of  the  Rhone,  in  the  midst  of  a  large  and  fruitful 
plain.  Except  for  the  bitter  winds  that  sometimes 
come  to  it,  it  was,  and  is,  an  earthly  paradise ;  there 
the  skies  are  clear  and  the  air  is  soft.  Like  Israel's 
promised  land,  it  was  a  land  of  oil  and  wine,  a  land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey. 

During  the  period  of  papal  residence  in  Avignon, 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       195 

the  French  influence  was  supreme.  Himself  a 
Frenchman,  the  pope  lent  himself  easily  to  French 
interests.  Clement,  to  his  eternal  shame,  surren- 
dered the  Templars  to  the  rapacity  and  cruelty  of 
Philip  the  Fair.  He  did,  indeed,  avoid  the  last 
degradation,  the  condemnation  of  Boniface;  but  he 
escaped  it  only  by  the  skin  of  his  teeth.  Philip, 
worn  out  and  nigh  unto  death,  dropped  the  perse- 
cution. 

When  Clement  died,  which  he  did  after  a  reign 
of  nearly  nine  years,  there  was  an  interregnum  of 
more  than  two  years.  There  was  now  no  great 
question  dividing  the  conclave :  it  was  a  mere  mat- 
ter of  spoils  that  delayed  the  election.  At  last  the 
cardinals  were  driven  together  in  Carpentras,  by 
the  sword  of  Philip  of  Orleans,  and  compelled  to 
a  choice.  They  chose  James  of  Cahors,  Cardinal 
D'Eusa,  Bishop  of  Porto.  This  man  had  vowed 
that  if  elected  he  would  never  mount  horse  until  he 
set  out  for  Rome;  and  he  did  not.  After  his  coro- 
nation, when  he  took  the  name  of  John  XXII., 
he  walked  from  his  house  in  Carpentras  to  the  river, 
took  a  boat  and  sailed  down  to  Avignon,  walked 
from  the  shore  to  the  palace,  and  never  left  it  dur- 
ing the  eighteen  years  of  his  pontificate. 


ig6  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

At  the  death  of  John,  the  cardinals  after  long 
balloting  chanced  to  throw  their  votes  to  James 
Fournier,  the  least  conspicuous  member  of  the  col- 
lege, and  to  his  and  their  astonishment,  elected  him 
to  the  see  of  Peter.  He  took  the  name  of  Benedict 
XII.,  and  during  his  episcopate  of  ten  years,  did  all 
that  he  could  to  reform  the  Church.  But  the  abuses 
were  too  much  for  one  old  man  and  he  left  the 
Church  as  he  found  it. 

After  him  came  Peter  Roger,  Clement  VI.,  the 
Limousian  noble,  of  whom  it  is  written  that  he  he 
was  free  with  the  company  of  women,  a  gentleman 
of  wealth,  of  leisure  and  magnificence. 

After  Clement  VI.  came  Stephen  Aubert,  Inno- 
cent VI.,  a  good  old  man,  who,  in  his  reign  of  ten 
years,  did  what  he  could  to  curb  the  growing  evils 
of  the  Church. 

The  absence  of  the  popes  from  Rome  was  now  a 
scandal  that  threatened  the  papacy  itself.  But  the 
cardinals  were  native  and  to  the  manner  born.  Avig- 
non was  their  home  and  they  hated  to  think  of  a 
change.  After  the  death  of  Innocent,  the  college 
elected  William  Grimoardi  Abbot  of  the  Monastery 
of  S.  Victor,  in  Marseilles.  He  had  said  he  would 
die  happy,  could  be  but  see  the  pope  restored  to 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       197 

Rome.  The  cardinals  did  not  know  this  when  they 
elected  him,  else  had  he  not  been  chosen. 

And  the  new  pope  was  as  good  as  his  word.  Ur- 
ban V.,  for  so  he  called  himself,  did  try  to  restore 
the  residence  of  the  popes  to  Rome.  He  was 
crowned  at  Avignon.  But  after  a  while,  in  the 
midst  of  weeping  cardinals,  he  set  out  for  Italy,  sail- 
ing from  Marseilles.  He  came  to  Corneto,  from 
where  he  went  to  Viterbo,  which  he  made  his  tempo- 
rary residence,  and  where  he  received  the  submis- 
sion of  Rome.  But  the  change  was  too  much  for 
the  old  man.  Homesickness  overcame  him,  and  he 
returned  to  Avignon  to  die. 

To  his  successor,  Peter  Roger,  the  younger  Greg- 
ory XL,  belongs  the  honor  of  the  permanent  restora- 
tion of  the  papacy  to  Rome. 

Nephew  of  Clement '  VI.,  cardinal  at  eighteen, 
a  close  student,  of  severe  life,  he  would  not  endure 
the  looseness  of  the  clergy.  To  an  idle  bishop  in 
Avignon  he  said,  "Why  are  you  not  in  your  dio- 
cese?" The  pert  answer  was,  "Why  are  you  not 
in  yours  ?"  The  answer  smote  him  in  the  face,  and 
he  at  once  decided  to  go  where  he  belonged,  to  sit 
in  his  seat,  which  was  the  seat  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 


ig8  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Paul.  Resisting  the  pressure  that  was  brought  upon 
him  by  the  cardinals  and  the  court  of  France,  he 
went  sadly  back  to  desolated  Rome.  He,  too,  sick- 
ened of  that  turbulent  city,  and  was  ready  to  forsake 
it  and  return  to  Avignon,  but  death  stepped  in  and 
prevented  his  desertion.  He  died  in  Rome  in  the 
9th  year  of  his  pontificate,  the  47th  year  of  his  age 
and  in  the  72d  year  of  the  captivity. 

While  Gregory  was  on  his  death-bed  the  banner- 
bearers  of  the  city  came  to  the  cardinals  and  told 
them  that  it  was  the  will  of  the  people  that  they 
should  elect  a  Roman  or  an  Italian  pope.  The  cardi- 
nals answered  that  such  things  were  not  spoken  of 
out  of  conclave,  and  they  would  at  the  proper  time 
choose  a  pope  after  their  own  conscience  and  for 
the  good  of  the  whole  Church.  The  banner-bearers 
told  them  that  their  lives  were  in  danger  unless  they 
complied  with  the  wishes  of  the  people.  The  car- 
dinals again  answered  that  an  election  under  duress 
would  be  null  and  void,  and  one  so  chosen  be  an 
usurper  and  no  true  pope.  When  Gregory  died, 
the  magistrates  came  again  seeking  some  assurance 
from  the  cardinals  that  they  would  elect  a  Roman  to 
the  Roman  See.  But  the  cardinals  answered  them 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       199 

after  the  former  manner;  they  would  elect  whom 
they  would  elect. 

Then  the  magistrates  determined  to  force  an  elec- 
tion; they  guarded  the  gates  of  the  city;  expelled 
the  nobles  and  all  partisans  of  the  cardinals;  filled 
the  streets  with  peasants  and  mechanics,  who  hooted 
the  cardinals  and  followed  them  into  the  very  con- 
clave itself,  crying  "a  Roman  pope  or  death."  All 
day  the  crowds  surged  about  the  place  of  the  con- 
clave, and  all  night  a  frightful  cry  went  up  of  Ro- 
mano lo  Volemo  lo  papa.  Romano  lo  Volemo.  The 
banner-bearers  sent  word  into  the  conclave  that 
they  could  not  restrain  the  people  much  longer ;  the 
cardinals  must  elect  a  Roman  or  Italian  pope  or  die. 

In  their  consternation  the  cardinals  cast  their  eyes 
hastily  upon  Bartholomew  Pignano,  Archbishop  of 
Bari,  a  man  of  ability,  who  was  well  learned  in  the 
canon  law,  and  so  would  know  the  invalidity  of  his 
election.  The  cardinals  did  not  know  that  Pignano 
was  a  secret  instigator  of  the  riot  with  a  view  to  his 
own  election.  In  fright  and  fear  they  gave  their 
votes  to  him,  and  he  was  chosen  pope.  This  fact 
was  proclaimed  from  a  window  of  the  palace  where 


200  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  conclave  was  assembled,  and  the  people  with  a 
great  shout  ran  to  build  fires  and  to  ring  bells. 

The  next  day  Pignano  was  enthroned  and  as- 
sumed the  name  of  Urban  VI.  Knowing  the  ir- 
regularity of  his  election,  he  began  at  once  to  sus- 
pect the  cardinals  of  an  intention  to  declare  that 
election  illegal.  So  he  watched  them  with  suspicious 
closeness,  and  treated  them  with  great  rigor.  He 
developed  at  once  a  most  violent  and  tyrannical 
temper. 

So  long  as  they  were  in  Rome  the  cardinals  did 
not  dare  to  question  Urban's  title.  But  twelve  of 
them  escaped  to  Anagni,  and  there  made  oath  be- 
fore the  Chamberlain  of  the  Holy  See  that  the  elec- 
tion of  Urban  was  forced  and  not  free.  They  com- 
municated this  fact  to  the  cardinals  which  were  at 
Avignon,  and  warned  all  Christendom  of  the  ille- 
gality of  the  election. 

They  were  joined  by  the  cardinals  at  Avignon, 
and  enticed  away  the  only  two  cardinals  who  were 
true  to  Urban  by  promising  secretly  to  elect  each 
of  them  pope,  and  proceeded  with  great  formality  to 
declare  the  nullity  of  their  former  action  and  to 
call  upon  Urban  to  give  up  an  office  and  a  title  which 
were  not  rightly  his.  Urban  raged  against  them 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       201 

like  a  wounded  bear.  He  sent  soldiers  to  take  them 
and  bring  them  in  chains  to  Rome.  The  cardinals 
fled  from  Avignon  to  Fondi  in  the  kingdom  of  Na- 
ples, and  there  they  elected  Robert  of  Geneva,  one 
of  their  own  number,  to  the  papacy. 

And  so  began  the  great  schism,  which  lasted  from 
the  year  1378  to  the  year  1414.  During  all  these 
six  and  thirty  years  there  were  two  popes  in  western 
Christendom,  each  with  his  own  obedience,  each 
with  his  bitter  partisans.  The  garment  of  the 
Church's  unity  was  torn  to  shreds,  and  these  con- 
tending priests  were  shaking  the  rags  in  each 
other's  faces.  With  Urban  went  the  better  part  of 
Italy,  England,  Sweden,  Norway,  Denmark,  Hun- 
gary and  Bohemia.  With  Robert  of  Geneva,  who 
took  the  name  of  Clement  VII.,  went  France  and 
Savoy,  Naples  and  afterwards  Spain.  After  a  short 
sojourn  in  Naples,  Clement  retired  to  Avignon. 

The  question  of  the  rightful  title  to  the  papacy 
has  not  been  settled  to  this  day.  Saints  differed 
from  saints  and  doctors  from  doctors.  The  Coun- 
cils of  Pisa  and  of  Constance  could  not  decide  the 
perplexing  question.  Roman  writers  tell  us  that 
while  it  is  necessary  to  salvation  to  believe  that  there 
is  an  infallible  head  of  the  Church  on  earth,  it  is 


202  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

not  necessary  to  know  who  that  head  is.  So  to 
this  day  we  do  not  know  which  was  the  voice  from 
heaven,  the  voice  of  Urban  who  condemned  Clem- 
ent, or  the  voice  of  Clement  who  condemned  Urban. 

As  long  as  these  two  lived  the  war  went  on,  and 
the  papacy  sank  lower  and  lower  in  the  estimation 
of  mankind.  Clement  and  Urban  each  promoted 
cardinals.  So  now  it  was  pope  against  pope  and 
college  against  college.  With  Urban  there  was  no 
thought  of  compromise.  His  reign  was  one  of  vio- 
lence, and  it  was  wittily  said  that  he  should  have 
called  himself  Turbanus  instead  of  Urbanus.  When 
Urban  died  men  hoped  for  the  healing  of  the  schism. 
It  was  a  scandal  that  was  threatening  the  whole  ex- 
isting order.  The  popes  were  in  such  danger  as 
they  had  never  been  before.  The  people  were  be- 
ginning to  laugh  at  them,  and  a  laugh  is  the  end  of 
all  pretension.  The  danger  of  the  pope  was  the 
danger  of  the  hierarchy.  So  the  priesthood  took 
alarm  and  began  to  work  for  the  peace  of  the 
Church. 

The  princes  and  the  prelates  besought  the  cardi- 
nals of  Urban  not  to  enter  into  a  new  election.  But 
fearing  for  their  cardinalate,  they  would  not  listen. 
First  taking  an  oath  that  bound  whosoever  was 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH,       203 

elected  to  resign  as  soon  as  the  pope  at  Avignon 
should  resign,  they  chose  Peter  Thomacelli,  Boni- 
face IX.,  in  the  room  of  Urban;  this  process  was 
repeated  upon  the  election  of  Innocent  VII.,  and 
again  swearing  on  holy  Gospel,  they  chose  Angelus 
Corarius,  who  assumed  the  name  of  Gregory  XII. 

In  Avignon,  where  Clement  died,  his  cardinals 
taking  the  same  oath  and  making  the  same  protesta- 
tions, as  if  to  bring  the  papacy  into  utter  contempt, 
proceeded  to  elect  the  impossible  Peter  De  Luna 
to  the  vacant  see,  who  called  himself  Benedict 
XIII.  Christendom  now  saw  two  old  men,  each 
claiming  to  be  vicar  of  Christ  on  earth;  each  ex- 
communicating the  other,  and  the  sight  was  not 
edifying. 

Churchmen  in  every  part  of  the  Catholic  world 
began  to  bestir  themselves.  The  University  of  Paris 
under  the  lead  of  Peter  d'Ailly  and  John  Gerson 
called  for  a  council  to  reform  the  Church  and  its 
head  and  members.  All  Europe  responded  to  the 
call.  Every  effort  was  made  to  have  both  popes 
resign  as  the  easiest  way  of  ending  the  schism.  They 
both  swore  that  this  was  the  very  thing  they  wanted 
to,  but  they  backed  and  filled  and  did  nothing. 

At  last  the  patience  of  their  very  partisans  was 


204  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

worn  out.  France  withdrew  from  the  obedience  of 
Benedict  and  the  king  made  him  a  prisoner  in  his 
palace.  He  excommunicated  the  king  and  all  the 
king's  men  and  escaped  into  Spain. 

The  majority  of  his  cardinals  forsook  him,  and 
joining  with  a  majority  of  the  cardinals  of  Gregory 
called  a  council  to  end  the  schism.  This  council 
met  in  Pisa,  in  the  year  1409.  It  was  largely  at- 
tended by  prelates  of  every  degree.  It  summoned 
both  claimants  to  the  papacy  to  appear  for  judg- 
ment, that  the  council  might  decide  between  them. 
On  their  failing  to  do  so,  the  council  excommuni- 
cated and  degraded  both  Benedict  and  Gregory,  and 
commanded  the  cardinals  to  elect  a  new  pope.  This 
they  did,  choosing  Peter  Candia,  a  mild  Muscovite 
friar,  of  feeble  health  and  great  age,  who  took  the 
name  of  Alexander  V.  After  his  election  the  coun- 
cil dispersed  and  the  schism  was  not  healed.  Spain 
was  still  true  to  Benedict  and  parts  of  Italy  to  Greg- 
ory. So  the  Council  of  Pisa  did  nothing  but  make 
matters  worse.  After  it,  there  were  three  popes 
instead  of  two. 

And  now  comes  upon  the  stage  a  character  who 
sums  up  in  himself  all  the  wretchedness  of  this 
wretched  period.  At  the  Council  of  Pisa  none  was 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       205 

more  busy,  none  made  himself  more  agreeable  than 
Balthazar  Cossa,  Cardinal  Legate  of  Bologna.  He 
looked  after  everybody's  welfare;  arranged  for  all 
meetings  and  brought  about  the  election  of  good 
old  Peter  Candia.  And  he  was  chief  adviser  to  Al- 
exander during  his  pontificate.  For  his  advantage, 
Alexander  died  in  ten  months  and  eight  days  from 
the  day  of  his  coronation.  Then  Cardinal  Cossa, 
being  in  his  own  city  of  Bologna,  terrorized  the  car- 
dinals and  compelled  his  own  election.  He  assumed 
the  name  of  John  XXIIL,  the  most  infamous  name 
in  the  long  line  of  popes. 

The  Council  of  Pisa  had  directed  that  another 
council  should  assemble  in  three  years,  to  take  up 
the  work  of  reforming  the  Church  in  its  head  and 
members.  The  continuance  of  the  schism  and  the 
character  of  John  made  that  council  an  imperative 
necessity. 

The  Emperor  Sigismund  demanded  of  John  that 
he  should  summon  the  council.  After  long  hesita- 
tion the  pope  consented,  on  the  condition  that  the 
council  should  be  called  in  his  name  and  acknowl- 
edge his  title.  The  emperor  insisted  on  joining  his 
name  to  that  of  the  pope  and  having  the  choice  of 
the  place  of  meeting.  To  these  terms  the  pope  at 
last  agreed,  and  a  decree  went  forth  calling  a  coun- 


2o6  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

cil  to  meet  in  the  city  of  Constance,  in  the  fall  of 
1414.  Meantime  the  mind  of  the  Church  was  pre- 
pared for  radical  action.  Gerson  wrote  pamphlet 
after  pamphlet,  asserting  the  right  of  a  council  to 
judge  and  depose  a  pope.  He  stood  on  old  Catholic 
ground.  The  Church  was  the  head  of  the  pope, 
not  the  pope  the  head  of  the  Church.  He  was  serv- 
ant not  master. 

And  now  the  city  of  Constance  was  the  center 
of  interest  to  Christendom.  The  little  town  was  all 
astir.  Servants  of  the  great  prelates  and  princes 
came  to  make  ready  for  their  masters,  every  inn  was 
occupied  and  every  house  was  an  inn.  And  after 
the  servants  came  the  masters,  the  emperor  and  the 
princes,  the  pope  and  the  cardinals,  the  archbishops, 
bishops,  and  priests,  and  a  host  of  doctors  and  di- 
vines. It  was  the  largest  and  most  dignified  coun- 
cil that  had  met  in  the  Church  for  centuries. 

The  great  assembly  was  opened  with  all  splendor 
and  solemnity  by  the  pope,  but  his  heart  misgave 
him  as  he  looked  over  the  vast  gathering.  He  knew 
that  he  was  in  the  power  of  the  council,  and  the 
council  was  there  to  judge  him. 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       207 

To  protect  itself  from  being  overborne  by  a  host 
of  Italian  prelates  in  the  interest  of  the  pope,  the 
council  decided  to  vote  by  nations — Italy,  France, 
Germany  and  England,  and  afterward  Spain,  each 
having  one  vote,  and  so  once  more  nationalism  tri- 
umphed over  universalism,  and  the  national  churches 
of  the  next  century  cast  their  shadows  before.  The 
first  business  of  the  council  was  the  healing  of  the 
schism.  John  XXIII.  was  pope  in  possession, 
should  the  council  judge  his  claim.  The  council 
did  not  judge  his  claim ;  but  it  did  judge  his  charac- 
ter, and  condemn  him  as  unfit  to  reign. 

Nearly  one  hundred  charges  were  brought  against 
him.  Into  many  of  these,  such  as  incest,  rape  and 
murder,  the  council  refused  to  enter,  as  their  dis- 
cussion would  but  scandalize  the  more  an  already 
scandalized  Giristendom.  The  council  decided  to 
judge  him  on  the  ecclesiastical  charges  of  heresy 
and  simony.  Every  effort  was  made  to  compel  the 
pope  to  cede  the  papacy. 

This  the  pope  at  first  consented  to  do.  But  he  re- 
pented of  his  good  resolution,  escaped  in  the  dis- 
guise of  a  groom  to  Schaffhausen,  a  stronghold  of 
his  friend  Duke  Albert  of  Austria,  and  from  there  he 
dissolved  the  council.  But  the  council  stood  firm. 


208  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

It  made  its  great  declaration  of  rights  in  these  mem- 
orable words:  "That  the  present  council,  lawfully 
assembled  in  the  city  of  Constance,  and  representing 
the  whole  Church  Militant,  holds  its  power  imme- 
diately from  Jesus  Christ,  and  all  persons,  of  what- 
ever state  or  dignity  (the  papal  not  excepted),  are 
bound  to  obey  it,  in  what  concerns  the  faith,  the 
extirpation  of  the  schism  and  the  reformation  of  the 
Church  in  its  head  and  members."  It  went  on  with 
the  trial  of  the  pope,  and  condemned  and  deposed 
him. 

Albert  of  Austria  surrendered  him  to  Sigismund, 
and  Sigismund  gave  him  up  to  the  council.  He  was 
thrown  into  a  dungeon;  his  spirit  broken;  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  council ;  he  confessed  his  crimes ;  he 
ceded  the  papacy.  And  so  ended  in  shame  the 
shameful  schism. 

Gregory  XII.,  by  two  of  his  cardinals,  ceded  his 
right  to  the  papacy  for  a  cardinal's  hat. 

The  emperor  went  a  long  journey  into  Spain  to 
procure  like  action  from  Benedict;  but  he  could 
do  nothing  with  that  old  termagant;  pope  he  was, 
and  pope  he  would  be.  The  emperor  left  him  in 
Pensicola  with  his  two  cardinals — one  to  hold  his 
candle  and  the  other  to  hold  his  book,  while  he  him- 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       209 

self  rang  the  bell  and  cursed  the  council  and  all  the 
adherents  of  the  council :  he  cursed  Balthazar  Cossa 
and  Angelus  Corarius;  he  cursed  the  emperor  and 
the  empire;  he  cursed  the  king  of  France  and  all 
the  French  people;  he  cursed  England's  king  and 
England's  folk,  Castile,  Aragon  and  the  whole  pen- 
insula and  all  the  islands  of  the  sea.  And  then,  in 
one  comprehensive  swoop,  he  cursed  the  whole 
world  except  himself  and  the  two  cardinals  of  his 
obedience,  and  he  remained  in  that  attitude  of  curs- 
ing until  the  day  of  his  death. 

But  if  Sigismund  did  not  bring  the  cession  of 
Benedict,  he  brought  something  of  greater  value  to 
the  council :  he  brought  the  accession  of  Spain. 
Representatives  of  the  various  Spanish  kingdoms 
came  with  the  emperor,  and  in  public  assembly  re- 
nounced the  obedience  of  Benedict  and  gave  their 
consent  to  the  acts  of  the  Council  of  Constance. 
This  made  the  council  supreme  in  Western  Christ- 
endom. It  proceeded  at  once  to  anathematize  and 
depose  Peter  De  Luna,  calling  himself  Benedict 
XIII.  It  left  him  to  wither  in  the  heat  of  his  own 
curses  in  his  own  little  town  of  Perpignan,  while 
it  declared  the  papacy  vacant.  The  polity  of  the 
Church  had  now  undergone  a  complete  revolution: 
REL.  &  POL.— 14 


210  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

a  revolution  as  complete  as  that  of  the  French  gov- 
ernment, when,  on  the  loth  of  August,  1792,  the 
Constituent  Assembly  deposed  Louis  XVI.  and  de- 
clared the  throne  vacant.  That  the  revolution  in 
ecclesiastical  polity  was  not  permanent  was  owing 
entirely  to  the  weakness  of  the  Council  of  Constance. 
That  council  was  called  for  the  defence  of  the  Faith, 
for  the  extirpation  of  the  schism,  and  for  the  ref- 
ormation of  the  Church  in  its  head  and  members. 
It  accomplished  only  one  of  these  purposes :  it  did 
heal  the  schism — after  Constance  there  are  no  more 
antipopes — but  it  did  not  reform  the  Church  either 
in  its  head  or  members. 

It  did  indeed  reform  the  head  of  the  Church  for 
a  moment  by  the  simple  and  summary  process  of 
cutting  off  one  head  and  putting  on  another ;  but  it 
left  the  great  body  of  abuses  just  as  it  found  them. 
The  Emperor  Sigismund  besought  the  council  to 
proceed  with  the  reformation  of  the  Church  before 
the  election  of  a  pope.  But  to  this  the  council  would 
not  listen.  It  was  an  assembly  of  ecclesiastics  eager 
for  place  and  power.  Every  cardinal  aspired  to  be 
pope.  Every  bishop  hoped  to  be  a  cardinal;  every 
priest  a  bishop.  The  one  thought  in  everybody's 
mind  was,  Who  will  be  the  new  pope? 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       211 

The  impatience  of  this  thought  hurried  the  coun- 
cil on  to  an  election.  The  council,  however,  would 
not  trust  the  election  to  the  cardinals.  It  created 
a  special  electoral  body.  To  the  college  of  cardinals 
were  joined  thirty  representatives  from  the  council : 
six  from  each  of  the  five  nations.  It  was  supposed 
that  conflicting  interests  would  make  the  contest 
a  tedious  one,  but  to  the  astonishment  of  all  the  con- 
clave elected  almost  at  once  Otto,  Cardinal  Colonna, 
to  the  papal  see.  The  election  was  received  with 
joy  by  the  whole  council  and  city.  The  new  pope 
was  a  prince  of  the  Roman  city  as  well  as  of  the 
Roman  Church;  he  was  a  man  of  irreproachable 
morals  and  of  considerable  learning.  He  was 
crowned  in  Constance  in  the  midst  of  the  rejoicing 
of  the  people.  He  assumed  the  name  of  Martin  V., 
and  in  him  was  hailed  the  beginning  of  a  new  era. 
And  it  was  a  new  era.  The  great  mediaeval  papacy 
was  gone,  never  to  come  back  again.*  With  Martin 
V.  begins  the  purely  Italian  papacy.  He  was  the 
beginning  of  a  line  of  popes  which  ended  with  the 
pontificate  of  Leo  X.  These  popes  were  Italian 
princes  whose  sole  end  and  purpose  was  not  to  rule 
the  Church,  but  to  enrich  their  own  families  and  to 


*Milman,    Latin    Christ,  bk.   13,  chaps,  vin.,  xx.       M. 


212  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

beautify  their  own  city  of  Rome.  This  line  of  popes 
contains  one  or  two  names  of  repute:  the  lovely 
name  of  Thomas  of  Zarzanna,  Nicholas  V.,  crea- 
tor of  the  papal  city,  so  dear  to  the  tourist ;  and  the 
gentle  name  of  y£neas  Silvius  Piccolomini,  Pius  II., 
last  preacher  of  crusades.  But  the  papacy  declined 
with  frightful  rapidity  from  Martin  V.,  until  it  be- 
came the  prey  of  the  licentious  and  rapacious  Rodri- 
go  Borgia,  Alexander  VI.,  and  the  plaything  of 
Giovanni  de  Medici,  Leo  X. 

And  for  this  decline  the  Council  of  Constance 
was  to  blame.  Never  did  an  assembly  of  men  fail 
so  miserably  in  the  main  purpose  that  called  them 
together.  They  took  from  the  papacy  all  that  made 
it  great,  and  left  it  all  that  made  it  mean  and  mis- 
erable. Much  of  its  power  was  gone,  but  all  its 
stealings  were  left  it.  The  pope  was  turned  loose, 
not  to  rule  the  world  any  more,  but  to  batten  on 
its  riches. 

Soon  after  his  coronation,  Martin  V.  dropped 
down  to  Rome,  and  with  him  went  the  life  of  the 
council.  It  dragged  its  weary  way  along  for  a 
while,  and  then  dispersed,  leaving  the  Church  in 
the  main  as  it  found  it — unreformed  in  its  head, 


THE  FALL  OF  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.       213 

unreformed  in  its  members — left  it  to  await  the 
wrath  of  God  in  the  storms  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
But  the  Council  of  Constance  did  something.  It 
did  for  Western  Christendom  what  the  parliament 
of  1688  did  for  England ;  as  that  killed  forever  the 
absolute  and  divine  right  of  kings,  so  this  council 
put  an  end  forever  to  the  absolute  and  divine  right 
of  popes.  Since  1414  the  power  of  popes  and 
priests  has  been  passing  into  the  hands  of  the  peo- 
ple, so  that  it  can  now  be  truly  said  of  them,  as  of 
the  present  sovereign  of  England,  that  they  reign 
but  do  not  rule.  The  pope  still  fills  a  vast  place 
in  Christendom,  but  it  is  not  the  place  of  Hilde- 
brand,  or  even  of  Cajetan.  Men  no  longer  fear  his 
interdict  nor  his  excommunication.  The  excom- 
municated Dollinger  was  buried  in  honor,  with  the 
Archbishop  of  Munich  standing  by  and  baring  his 
head  in  reverence  before  the  open  grave.  The 
reign  of  the  popes  may  continue  for  ages,  but  the 
rule  of  the  popes  is  over. 


The   Rise    of   the    National 
Churches. 

In  the  year  1517  Frederick,  Elector  of  Saxony, 
was  filled  with  shame  and  indignation  as  he  saw  his 
people  flocking  to  buy  indulgences  of  one  Tetzel, 
the  agent  of  Albert,  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz  and 
Magdeburg,  who  in  turn  was  the  agent  of  Pope 
Leo  X.  Albert,  himself,  an  elector  of  the  Empire, 
and  a  brother  of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  had 
contracted  to  pay  30,000  gulden  into  the  papal 
treasury  as  the  price  of  his  Archbishopric.  This 
prelate,  a  young  voluptuary  of  extravagant  habits, 
had  no  intention  of  paying  the  30,000  gulden  out  of 
his  own  purse.  This  sum  of  money  must  in  some 
way  be  filched  from  the  people.  There  was  in 
those  days  a  method  of  robbery  which  was  both 
safe  and  sacred;  it  was  robbery  authorized  by  the 
state  and  blessed  by  the  church.  The  robbers  were 
Popes  and  Archbishops,  who,  by  threats  and  per- 
suasion, caused  the  people  to  exchange  their  gold 
and  their  silver,  the  wages  of  their  toil,  for  pieces 
of  paper  called  indulgences.  These  indulgences  had 

[214] 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.       215 

no  value  whatever  in  this  world,  but  they  were  sup- 
posed to  be  cashed  in  the  world  to  come.  A  man, 
having  purchased  this  indulgence,  might  dismiss 
the  thought  of  his  sin  from  his  mind.  He  had  con- 
doned for  his  guilt  by  money  payment,  and  he  was 
promised  a  speedy  deliverance  from  the  pains  of 
purgatory.  The  traffic  in  indulgences  was  based 
upon  the  superstitious  fears  of  men,  and  was  an 
unfailing  source  of  revenue  to  the  church. 

The  anger  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony  was  kindled 
against  this  practice  because  he  saw  it  was  enrich- 
ing his  rival,  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz.  It  was  his 
people  who  were  paying  the  price  of  the  Arch- 
bishopric into  the  coffers  of  the  Pope.  But,  fret 
and  fume  as  he  might,  the  Elector  Frederick  saw 
no  means  of  redress.  He  could  not  appeal  to  the 
Emperor,  because  the  Empire  was  without  a  head, 
and  the  vacant  throne  was  the  prize,  for  which  three 
Kings  of  Europe  were  contending, — each  of  whom 
was  anxious  for  the  favor  of  the  Pope  and  the  vote 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz.  If  the  Elector  had 
appealed  to  Rome,  the  Pope  and  the  Cardinals 
would  have  laughed  in  his  face,  for  it  was  the  Pope 
who  furnished  the  indulgences  which  Tetzel  had  for 
sale.  For  the  Elector  of  Saxony  there  was  no  re- 


2i6  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

lief,  and  he  had  to  stand  by  and  bite  his  nails  as  he 
saw  the  good  money  of  his  people  flowing  a  steady 
stream  of  gold  and  silver  into  the  pockets  of  his 
hated  rival.* 

Just  when  matters  were  at  their  worst  relief  came 
from  an  unexpected  quarter.  Frederick,  who  was 
a  lover  of  learning,  had  founded  a  university  in  his 
city  of  Wittenberg.  In  that  university  was  a  young 
Augustinian  monk,  who  was  renowned  as  a  scholar 
and  a  saint.  This  monk,  the  son  of  a  miner  of 
Eisleben,  was  a  man  of  the  people,  who  all  his  life 
long  had  stood  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  in  that 
presence  had  learned  the  true  value  of  indulgences, 
as  of  all  other  priestly  wares  which  were  sold  to 
the  people.  He  pronounced  the  indulgences  worth- 
less because  they  had  not  the  Divine  indorsement. 
And  this  monk,  having  the  courage  of  his  convic- 
tions, proclaimed  the  fraudulent  character  of  the 
papal  wares  to  all  the  world.  No  sooner  had  the 
Wittenberg  professor  spoken  out  than  he  found  an 
immediate  response  in  the  hearts  of  all  the  people. 
The  word  of  Luther  not  only  hindered  the 


*L.  Ranke,  History  of  Reformation  in  Germany,  bk.  2, 
chap.  vn. 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.       217 

sale  of  indulgences  in  Saxony,  and  so  saved 
the  money  of  the  Elector,  but  it  released 
forces  that  brought  about  the  destruction  of 
the  whole  ecclesiastical  system  of  which  the  sale 
of  indulgences  was  a  part.  Beginning  with  a  denial 
of  the  right  of  the  Pope  to  authorize  the  sale  of 
indulgences,  the  German  reformer  went  on  by  logi- 
cal necessity  to  deny  to  the  Pope  any  right  at  all 
over  the  heart  and  mind  of  man.  God  in  Christ  was 
the  only  power  to  whom  the  conscience  of  man  owed 
allegiance,  and  God's  mind  and  will  were  expressed 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  movement  which 
Luther  inaugurated  was  not  so  much  a  reformation 
as  it  was  a  revolution,  and  a  revolution  far  more 
radical  than  the  reformer  himself  had  any  notion  of 
bringing  about.  Luther  was  a  churchman  and  a 
schoolman,  and  what  he  desired  was  a  reformation 
of  the  church  and  an  enlightenment  of  the  school. 
What  he  really  did  was  to  deliver  man  from  bond- 
age both  to  church  and  school,  and  set  him  free  to 
work  out  his  own  intellectual  and  spiritual  salva- 
tion with  fear  and  trembling. 

Luther,  in  making  his  appeal  to  scripture  simply 
substituted  authority  for  authority, — the  authority 
of  the  written  tradition  for  the  authority  of  the  oral 


2i8  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

tradition  of  the  church.  He  made  the  Apostolic 
age  the  infallible  rule  of  truth. 

This  position  of  Luther  was  without  any  basis  in 
pure  reason.  If  we  can  ascribe  infallibility  to  the 
first  age  of  Christianity,  then  we  can  with  equal 
justice  predicate  infallibility  of  all  ages.  But,  while 
the  position  of  Luther  was  untenable  in  the  light  of 
pure  reason,  it  was  impregnable  as  against  his  ad- 
versaries at  the  time.  The  church  proclaimed  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  Scriptures  to  be  the  Word 
of  God,  and  to  the  judgment  of  that  Word  the 
church  was  bound  to  submit  its  actions  and  its 
claims. 

Because  the  life  of  humanity  is  progressive,  there- 
fore it  is  that  mankind  advances  step  by  step.  It 
was  not  possible  for  the  reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  see  the  full  consequences  of  their  own 
contention,  and  to  grant  to  men  at  once  that  perfect 
freedom  of  thought,  and  that  comparative  freedom 
of  action,  which  after  four  centuries  we  see  to  be 
the  natural  outcome  of  their  teaching.  The  first 
result  of  the  action  of  Luther  was  not  to  produce  a 
higher  order,  but  to  bring  about  a  greater  confusion. 
When  that  strong  man,  the  Papacy,  was  bound, 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.      219 

then  the  whole  world  flocked  about  him  to  spoil  his 
goods,  and  the  lion's  share  of  the  spoil  was  appro- 
priated by  the  Kings  and  princes.  As  after  the  fall 
the  Pope  there  was  no  earthly  divinity  from  which 
kings  could  derive  their  title,  they  claimed  to  have 
it  direct  from  God.  It  is  in  the  centuries  immedi- 
ately succeeding  the  Reformation  that  we  hear  of 
the  divine  right  of  Kings,  and  in  which  Europe 
falls  a  prey  to  that  system  of  absolute  monarchy 
which  ended  in  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. 

Luther  was  a  powerful  factor,  both  in  casting 
down  the  Papacy,  and  in  setting  up  the  Kings.  In 
fighting  the  Pope,  the  reformer  was  fighting  the 
battle  of  the  Kings.  Because  of  the  Reformation, 
religion  was  in  a  manner  localized  and  nationalized. 
Each  ruler  became  the  head  of  a  religion  within  his 
own  dominions.  No  one  at  the  Reformation  period 
dreamed  of  permitting  the  people  to  think  and 
choose  for  themselves.  Luther,  who  exercised  the 
right  of  private  judgment  himself,  refused  that 
right  to  all  others.  By  virtue  of  his  genius  and  of 
his  political  alliance  with  the  princes  of  North  Ger- 
many he  aspired,  himself,  to  the  office  of  infallible 
teacher  of  mankind.  He  thundered  against  the 


220  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Swiss  reformer,  Zwingli,  with  the  same  violence 
that  he  thundered  against  the  Pope.  Luther  was 
not  the  champion  of  free  thought ;  he  was,  as  I  have 
said,  the  champion  of  the  written  as  against  the  oral 
tradition  of  Christianity,  of  the  local,  against  the 
universal,  church. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  Reformation  was  the 
establishment  of  the  national  churches  of  northern 
Europe,  in  which  the  Kings  and  the  theological 
faculties  were  the  Popes  and  the  Cardinals.  It  was 
expected  that  the  people  at  large  would  meekly  fol- 
low their  rulers  in  every  change  of  religion.  The 
Protestant  Reformation  was  not  so  much  the  work 
of  the  preachers  as  it  was  the  work  of  the  princes. 
It  was  the  German  princes  who  entered  their  sol- 
emn protest  against  the  action  of  the  Diet  of  Speyer 
and  thus  gave  name  to  the  new  religion  that  had 
entered  the  world.  And  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg, 
in  1555,  it  was  decided  by  way  of  compromise  that 
the  head  of  each  separate  state  of  Germany  be  per- 
mitted to  adopt  either  the  Catholic  or  the  Protestant 
creed  and  that  the  subjects  of  each  state  must  con- 
form to  the  religion  of  the  ruler.  This  decision  not 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.      221 

only  divided  Germany  into  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
but  it  made  the  head  of  the  state  also  the  head  of  the 
church.  Even  in  Catholic  countries  it  was  Catho- 
licism, and  not  Papacy,  which  survived  the  Reform- 
ation. The  power  of  the  popes  was  everywhere  sub- 
ject to  the  power  of  kings.  The  days  of  excom- 
munication and  interdict  were  over,  and  the  spiritual 
was  everywhere,  except  in  the  states  of  the  church, 
subject  to  the  temporal  authority. 

The  division  of  Europe  into  Protestant  and  Cath- 
olic countries  gave  rise  in  the  sixteenth  century  to 
the  religious  wars  which  wasted  western  Christen- 
dom for  a  hundred  years.  Freedom  of  thought  was 
not  dreamed  of,  and  prosecution  for  opinion's  sake 
was  considered  the  bounden  duty  of  princes.  Not 
only  did  Catholics  persecute  Protestants,  and  Pro- 
testants, Catholics,  but  Protestants  raged  against 
Protestants,  and  put  them  to  death.  Luther  re- 
joiced when  Zwingli  was  killed  in  battle,  and  Calvin 
burned  Servetus  in  the  market  place  of  Geneva.  It 
was  this  division  of  Protestantism  against  itself  that 
arrested  the  progress  of  the  movement,  lost  France 
to  the  Reformation,  and  brought  about  the  Catholic 
reaction. 

When   we   calmly   consider   the   history   of  the 


222  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Reformation  we  see  that  it  was  not  the  people  at 
large  who  profited  by  that  movement,  but  it  was  in 
the  main  the  upper  classes,  the  princes  and  the 
nobility,  who  reaped  the  benefit.  The  princes  suc- 
ceeded to  the  power  of  the  Pope,  and  the  nobility 
to  the  wealth  of  the  clergy.  After  his  condemnation 
by  the  Pope  Luther  made  his  appeal,  not  to  the 
people  at  large,  but  to  the  Christian  nobility  of  the 
German  Empire,  and  he  professed  to  place  his  faith 
in  the  newly  elected  Emperor  and  in  the  princes  of 
the  Empire.  In  the  peasants'  war  Luther  was 
strongly  on  the  side  of  the  rulers  as  against  the 
people,  and  to  this  day  the  national  establishments 
which  are  the  product  of  the  Reformation  move- 
ment are  the  churches  of  the  so  called  higher 
classes;  the  churches  in  which  the  rulers,  political 
and  mercantile,  of  the  Protestant  world  find  them- 
selves at  home. 

This  relation  of  church  and  state,  which  followed 
upon  the  preaching  of  Luther,  had  its  most  perfect 
example  in  England.  There  was  in  England  at  the 
time  no  spiritual  genius  like  Luther,  or  Zwingli,  or 
Calvin,  but  there  was  a  King  of  indomitable  will  and 
unscrupulous  ambition,  who  took  advantage  of  the 
religious  ferment  to  establish  his  absolute  authority 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.       223 

over  both  church  and  state.  When  Henry  deter- 
mined to  cast  off  the  authority  of  the  see  of  Rome, 
he  found  his  willing  instruments  among  the  higher 
dignitaries  of  the  church.  The  Bishops  and  the 
Deans  and  the  heads  of  colleges  were  for  the  most 
part  ready  to  follow  the  King  in  his  work  of  revolu- 
tion. The  people  on  the  whole  were  passive.  The 
English  people  had  not  the  same  reason  to  hate  the 
Roman  see  which  moved  the  people  of  Germany; 
and  would  have  been  satisfied  with  a  reasonable 
redress  of  grievances  and  a  reform  of  the  more 
flagrant  abuses.  That  England  is  to-day  the  most 
Protestant  of  nations,  is  owing  not  to  the  preach- 
ing of  Luther,  but  to  the  influence  of  Calvin,  and 
more  especially  to  the  blunders  of  the  see  of  Rome. 
Henry  was  not  a  follower  of  Luther.  He  earned  his 
title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith  by  writing  a  treatise 
against  the  heresies  of  the  German  agitator.  Henry 
remained  in  all  essentials  a  Catholic  to  the  day  of 
his  death.  His  quarrel  was  not  with  the  church, 
but  with  the  Pope.  Had  the  Pope  yielded  in  the 
matter  of  the  divorce  of  Catherine,  the  King  might 
have  remained  all  his  life  a  faithful  son  of  the 
church,  and  the  Reformation  in  England  had  a  dif- 
ferent history.  But  the  Pope  could  not,  and  the 


224  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

King  would  not,  yield.  So  Henry,  by  an  act  of 
royal  power,  separated  the  Church  of  England  from 
the  communion  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  This  act 
of  the  King  saved  the  Church  of  England  from  that 
loss  of  historical  continuity  which  was  the  great 
misfortune  of  the  reformed  churches  on  the  con- 
tinent. The  ancient  liturgies  of  the  church  were 
preserved  intact,  and  were  translated  into  English, 
and  in  the  prayer  book  of  the  English  Church  have 
become  the  priceless  heritage  of  the  English  people. 
The  ancient  ministry  of  Christendom  in  its  three- 
fold form  of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons,  was  left 
in  possession  of  the  offices  of  the  church,  and,  more 
important  than  all,  the  buildings  themselves,  the 
cathedrals  and  the  parish  churches,  were,  under  the 
King  as  under  the  Pope,  the  houses  of  prayer  and 
praise  for  the  English  people.  Whether  this  preser- 
vation of  the  liturgy,  the  ministry,  and  the  churches 
in  England  was  good  or  evil  will  depend  upon  the 
value  which  we  give  to  historical  continuity.  If  we 
prize  things  that  are  ancient;  if  we  believe  that  the 
evolutionary  process  is  better  than  the  revolution- 
ary,— then  we  will  look  upon  the  reformation  in 
England,  despite  the  crimes  of  its  authors,  as  being 
upon  the  whole  beneficial  to  the  spiritual  interests 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.      225 

of  mankind.  But  that  it  was  an  unmixed  good  will 
be  maintained  by  no  one,  except  by  such  as  see  in 
themselves  and  in  the  ecclesiastical  body  to  which 
they  belong,  the  last  and  final  work  of  God. 

The  English  church  was  at  the  reformation,  local- 
ized and  nationalized,  as  was  no  other  church  in 
western  Christendom.  The  great  Catholic  churches 
of  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Austria  had  free  com- 
munion among  themselves,  and  so  had  the  Protest- 
ant churches  of  North  Germany,  Switzerland,  and 
Scandinavia;  but  the  English  church  was  isolated 
from  all  Christendom  by  her  denial  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  on  the  one  hand  and  her 
refusal  to  admit  the  validity  of  the  ministry  of  the 
Protestant  churches  on  the  other;  and  in  this  posi- 
tion of  proud  isolation  the  Church  of  England  has 
remained  to  this  present.  She  is  the  most  purely 
national  of  all  the  churches. 

Henry,  with  a  brutality  that  marked  all  his 
actions,  subjected  the  spiritual  to  the  temporal 
power.  The  King,  by  royal  decree  and  act  of  Par- 
liament, became  supreme  head  of  the  Church  in 
England.  He  appointed  her  officers  and  prescribed 
her  doctrine.  He  burned  men  at  the  stake,  or  be- 
headed them,  on  Tower  Hill,  if  they  refused  to  ac- 
REL.  &  POL.— 15 


226  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

cept  the  royal  supremacy,  or  presumed  to  reject  the 
dogma  of  the  real  presence  of  the  Eucharist.  The 
flower  of  English  manhood  and  womanhood,  in  the 
persons  of  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Ann  Askew,  per- 
ished by  ax  and  fire,  the  one  because  his  Catholic 
and  the  other  because  her  Puritan  principles  did 
not  follow  the  exact  line  laid  down  by  this  supreme 
head  of  the  English  church.  When  Henry  died  the 
head  of  the  English  church  was  a  precocious  boy  of 
sixteen.  The  brief  life  of  Edward  VI.  was  the  criti- 
cal period  of  the  Church  of  England.  A  Protestant 
by  conviction,  he  carried  the  church  far  enough 
along  the  way  of  reform  to  save  the  old  establish- 
ment from  destruction.  The  movement  of  the 
English  people  toward  Protestantism  was  not  ar- 
rested, it  was  accelerated,  by  the  brief,  violent,  and 
ill-advised  reign  of  Mary,  the  Catholic.  The  fires 
of  Smithfield  did  more  to  make  the  people  of  Eng- 
land Protestant  than  the  preaching  of  Latimer  and 
Ridley.  When  Mary  died  the  religious  fate  of  Eng- 
land was  settled  for  all  time.  England  then  took  her 
place  among  the  Protestant  nations,  if  not  among 
the  Protestant  churches;  and  there  she  has  re- 
mained until  this  present  day. 

I  think  the  fair-minded  student  of  history  will  say 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.      227 

that  the  greatest  evil  connected  with  the  reformation 
in  England  was  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries 
and  the  distribution  of  their  properties  among  the 
favorites  of  the  court.  No  matter  how  corrupt  these 
institutions  might  be,  there  was  no  excuse  for  the 
wholesale  robbery  which  followed  their  dissolution. 
The  property  of  the  monasteries  did  not  belong  to 
the  King  or  the  courtiers;  it  was  property  held  in 
trust  for  pious  and  charitable  uses,  for  the  benefit, 
not  of  a  class,  but  of  the  whole  people  of  England, 
and  England  paid  the  penalty  of  this  gross  injustice 
by  the  pauperizing  of  a  large  portion  of  her  popu- 
lation. 

It  was  Queen  Elizabeth  who  gave  to  the  Church 
of  England  that  constitution  of  compromise  and 
comprehension  which  has  made  this  church  excep- 
tional among  the  churches  of  Christendom.  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  a  Catholic  at  heart,  and  would  have 
been  content  to  acknowledge  the  Pope  as  the  spirit- 
ual head  of  the  church  if  she  could  have  done  so 
with  safety  to  her  throne  and  her  life.  She  was 
forced  by  the  logic  of  her  position  into  the  cham- 
pionship of  European  Protestantism.  But  it  was 
her  wish  to  retain  within  the  national  establishment 
men  of  the  old,  as  well  as  of  the  new  faith.  She 


228  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

preserved  the  Catholic  creeds  and  the  Catholic 
offices  of  worship.  She  made  bishops  and  arch- 
bishops to  fill  the  ancient  sees.  She  retained  the 
ornaments  of  the  church  as  they  had  been  in  the 
reign  of  Edward.  She  organized  the  church  so  that 
there  would  be  room  in  it  for  all  her  subjects,  ex- 
cept the  extreme  Catholic  and  the  extreme  Puritan, 
and  for  these  she  wished  to  have  no  place  either  in 
her  church  or  in  her  Kingdom.  This  handiwork  of 
Elizabeth  has  stood  the  test  of  time.  It  was 
threatened  with  destruction  by  the  extreme  Catholic 
in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  herself  and  in  the  days  of 
King  James  II.  It  was  temporarily  overthrown  by 
the  extreme  Puritan  in  the  time  of  Cromwell.  But 
it  has  survived  all  disasters,  and  seems  to-day  secure 
in  the  affection  of  the  majority  of  the  English  peo- 
pie. 

Its  relation  to  the  state  is  the  relation  of  subjec- 
tion. The  Crown  now  acts  through  the  Prime 
Minister  who  represents  the  people.  The  Crown 
appoints  the  Bishops  of  the  church,  and  the 
Parliament  makes  its  laws.  That  such  a  situa- 
ation  is  endurable  is  owing  to  the  character 
of  the  English  people  and  to  the  peculiar  con- 
stitution of  both  church  and  state.  The  English  are 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.       229 

at  once  the  most  progressive  and  most  conservative 
of  people.  The  most  progressive  when  it  is  a  matter 
of  principle ;  the  most  conservative  when  it  is  a  mat- 
ter of  form.  The  English  church  will  freely  allow 
every  clergyman  to  deny  the  damnatory  clauses  of 
the  Athanasian  creed  in  his  sermon,  but  will  compel 
him  to  say  them  in  the  service.  Canon  Henson,  the 
radical,  and  Canon  Newboldt,  the  ritualist,  are 
equally  devoted  to  the  liturgical  worship  of  the 
church.  It  is  the  strength  of  the  Church  of  England 
that  men  of  widely  different  opinions  are  of  one 
mind  in  worship  and  in  work. 

It  is  the  weakness  of  this  establishment  that  its 
higher  officials  are  more  apt  to  reflect  the  mind  of 
the  powers  that  be,  than  they  are  to  reflect  the  mind 
of  Christ.  The  ecclesiastic  rises  in  his  calling  from 
a  town  or  country  curacy  to  the  Episcopal  throne 
through  the  favor  of  the  civil  power.  He  must,  in 
order  to  succeed,  combine  the  qualities  of  the  saint 
with  the  character  of  the  courtier;  he  must  at  the 
same  time  be  able  to  please  God  and  the  King ;  and 
of  the  two  it  is  more  necessary  to  his  worldly  pro- 
motion that  he  please  the  King.  England  has  pro- 
duced the  finest  examples  of  these  courtier-prelates, 
— men  who  were  both  pious  and  politic.  Such  men 


230  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

make  excellent  officials,  but  are  not  great  leaders. 
Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby,  said  that  the  English  church 
was  rebuked  daily  by  the  46th  verse  of  the  HQth 
Psalm,  which  reads :  "I  will  speak  of  thy  testimo- 
nies also,  even  before  Kings,  and  will  not  be 
ashamed."  It  is  the  constant  temptation  of  the 
King-made  bishop  to  attune  his  message  to  the 
Kingly  ear.  When  the  King  is  to  be  rebuked  you 
must  not  ask  that  task  of  the  courtier  prelate,  but 
must  call  in  some  rough,  rude  man  of  the  people, 
some  man  like  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  or  John  the  Bap- 
tist, or  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

Because  of  this  tendency  to  subserviency  the  es- 
tablished churches  have  long  since  ceased  to  be  the 
conscience  keepers  of  the  people  of  Europe.  The 
nonconformist  bodies  in  England  are  a  protest 
against  the  too  great  conformity  of  the  English 
establishment,  to  the  world  of  royalty  and  nobility. 

This  evil  of  excessive  conformity  is  constitutional 
with  all  state  establishments.  When  the  church  is 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  state  it  can  only  speak  the 
words  which  the  state  puts  in  its  mouth.  When  the 
state  approves  of  slavery  the  clergy  of  the  state 
church  will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  that  slavery 
is  a  divine  institution ;  if  the  state  is  militant  the 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.      231 

priesthood  will  bless  the  banners,  and  pray  for  the 
victory  of  the  national  arms.  The  state  church  of 
Russia  is  a  perfect  example  of  the  complete  sub- 
servience of  an  established  church  to  the  govern- 
ment which  sustains  it.  It  has  always  been  so,  and 
as  long  as  human  nature  is  human  nature  it  always 
will  be  so.  The  hope  of  Russia  is  not  in  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Moscow,  but  in  priests  like  Agathon,  and 
in  prophets  like  Tolstoy  and  Kropatkin ;  and  what  is 
true  of  the  Russian  church  is  true  of  all  churches. 
The  English  church  owes  whatever  greatness  it  may 
have  to-day,  not  to  its  long  line  of  archbishops,  but 
to  preachers  like  Wickliff  and  Wesley;  to  such 
parish  priests  and  poets  as  George  Herbert  and 
John  Keble;  to  such  earnest  souls  as  Simeon  the 
Evangelical,  and  Newman  the  Catholic.  High  of- 
fice and  high  character  are  seldom  found  together 
in  this  world,  for  too  commonly  high  character  is 
the  price  of  high  office. 

Another  evil  which  is  the  outcome  of  the  civil 
establishment  of  religion  is  the  false  estimate  which 
is  put  upon,  not  only  official  position,  but  upon  the 
accidents  of  official  life.  Its  salaries,  its  clothing, 
its  palaces,  are  considered  as  marks  of  divine  grace 
and  favor,  and  as  a  necessary  means  of  holding  the 


232  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

world  in  awe.  Men  are  judged  by  these  outward 
accidents  of  their  career,  rather  than  by  their  in- 
trinsic character.  In  our  modern  capitalistic 
churches  clergymen  are  rated  as  $3,000,  $5,000,  or 
$10,000  men.  The  successful  clergyman,  the  man 
whose  pictures  are  in  the  church  papers,  is  the  man 
who  goes  from  the  $3,000  to  the  $5,000,  and  from 
the  $5,000,  to  the  $10,000  church.  It  is  the  belief 
of  many  in  England  that,  if  the  bishops  were  to  lose 
their  palaces,  they  would  lose  their  power.  Some- 
times they  have  a  bishop,  like  the  present  Bishop  of 
London,  who  does  not  care  to  live  in  a  palace,  but 
the  church  says  to  him :  You  must  live  in  a  palace, 
because  in  the  nature  of  things,  bishops  and  palaces 
always  go  together.  There  is  grim  humor  in  the 
financial  statement  recently  put  forth  by  this  same 
Bishop  of  London.  His  income  is  $30,000  a  year. 
It  takes  it  all  to  keep  up  his  two  palaces,  and  the 
poor  man  is  in  danger  of  being  bankrupt. 

I  fear  that  the  visit  of  the  Archbishop  to  this 
country  will  have  a  tendency  to  promote  this  con- 
fusion of  values  in  the  mind  of  the  American  Epis- 
copal church.  This  conception  of  the  Episcopal 
office  as  depending  for  its  efficacy  upon  the  earthly 
accidents  that  attach  to  it  is  already  rife  among  us. 


RISE  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CHURCHES.      233 

In  the  opinion  of  many  of  the  leading  members  of 
our  communion  the  dignity  of  the  Episcopal  office 
depends  upon  the  extent  of  territory  over  which  the 
bishop  presides,  and  upon  the  wealth  of  the  church 
as  expressed  in  property  and  contributions.  The 
American,  and  indeed  the  modern,  is  prone  to  con- 
found greatness  with  bigness.  Measured  by  this 
standard  the  life  of  Jesus  was  most  insignificant,  the 
country  through  which  He  preached  was  no  larger 
than  Monroe  and  Ontario  counties  combined,  and 
the  town  that  he  made  his  home  not  so  large  as 
Canandaigua. 

It  will  be  a  blessed  day  for  Christianity  when  this 
materialistic  conception  of  greatness  perishes  from 
out  the  thought  of  the  Christian  world ;  when  it  will 
be  allowable  for  the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  leave  his  pal- 
ace of  many  thousand  rooms,  to  disband  his  guards, 
and  disperse  his  retinue,  and  live  as  Peter  lived 
in  the  humble  quarter  of  the  Trastevere  under  the 
Janiculum.  The  cause  of  the  Gospel  will  not  be 
hindered  when  a  man  like  the  Bishop  of  London 
can  dispense  with  mansions  of  state  and  live  as  Paul 
lived,  in  his  own  hired  house;  the  ministry  will  not 
be  depressed;  it  will  be  exalted, — when  men  are 
valued  for  their  salt  more  than  for  their  salary. 


234  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

The  established  churches  of  the  world  are  every- 
where in  decay,  and  must  soon  pass  away,  and  their 
disappearance  will  not  be  an  unmixed  evil  if  with 
them  goes  that  worldliness,  which  more  even  than 
grosser  sin  is  the  enemy  of  the  religion  of  Jesus. 


Relation    of    Church    and    State 
in    the    United    States. 

In  the  year  1620  a  little  ship  of  180  tons'  burden 
was  beating  up  against  the  wind  along  the  shore 
of  Cape  Cod  in  the  Bay  of  Massachusetts.  Exclu- 
sive of  the  crew,  this  ship  had  on  board  just  100 
souls.  From  a  human  point  of  view  there  could 
be  nothing  more  insignificant,  nothing  more  forlorn, 
than  this  weather-beaten  vessel  with  its  storm-tossed 
passengers  on  the  desolate  coast  of  what  was  then 
the  unbroken  wilderness  of  New  England.  But, 
looked  at  in  the  light  of  after  events,  we  see  in  this 
ship  a  new  ark  of  salvation  for  mankind.  To  par- 
allel this  event,  we  must  go  back  to  the  days  when 
the  ark  landed  the  patriarch  Noah  and  his  sons 
on  the  Mountain  of  Ararat,  or  to  the  days  when  Ab- 
ram  heard  in  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  the  voice  of  God 
saying  unto  him:  Get  thee  out  from  thy  country 
and  from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy  father's  house, 
unto  a  land  that  I  will  show  thee  of.*  Or,  if  these 
stories  of  Noah  and  Abram  seem  to  us  legendary 

*Gen.  xii.:  I. 

[235] 


236  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

and  without  basis  in  fact,  then  to  find  an  event  of 
greater  importance  than  the  beating  of  the  May- 
flower into  the  Bay  of  Massachusetts  we  must  go 
back  to  the  day  when  a  little  band  of  men  and 
women  gathered  together  in  an  upper  chamber  in 
Jerusalem  to  wait  for  the  promise  of  the  Lord. 

The  men  and  women  in  that  ship  had  in  their 
keeping  the  future  history  of  the  world.  They  were 
destined  to  shape  the  policy  and  inspire  the  heart  of 
a  new  people;  to  create  a  nation  in  which  church 
and  state  were  at  last  to  be  absolutely  one.  In  which 
the  principles  of  human  government  as  these  prin- 
ciples were  expounded  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth  were 
to  be  the  foundation  stones  of  a  great  national 
polity. 

Four  months  before  they  sighted  Cape  Cod  these 
people  had  sailed  out  of  the  port  of  Plymouth  in 
the  south  of  England  for  the  purpose  of  seeking 
a  new  home  in  a  strange  land.  They  were  driven 
to  this  enterprise  by  the  desire  to  find  a  place  where 
they  might  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates 
of  their  own  consciences.  They  were  men  and 
women  who  were  unable  to  conform  to  the  religious 
life  of  the  country  of  their  nativity.  As  we  have 
already  heard,  the  state  religion,  as  established  by 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       237 

the  Elizabethan  settlement,  was  a  compromise  in- 
tended to  include  all  but  the  extreme  Catholic  and 
the  extreme  Puritan.  For  a  while  this  effort  to  com- 
prehend the  whole  nation  in  the  ecclesiastical  es- 
tablishment was  successful ;  but  in  the  nature  of 
things  this  state  of  absolute  equilibrium  could  not 
last  long.  If  the  people  of  England  had  been  with- 
out reason  or  conscience  they  might  have  followed 
the  Kings  and  Queens  of  England  in  every  vagary 
of  religion,  and  rested  content  in  the  religious  life 
which  was  marked  out  for  them  by  the  royal  will. 
But,  being  men  of  thought  and  feeling  and  sturdy 
independence,  the  Islanders  were  certain  sooner  or 
later  to  rebel  against  the  authority  that  sought  to 
regulate  their  consciences,  and  to  curb  the  exercise 
of  their  reason  and  their  will.  When  the  Pope  ex- 
communicated Queen  Elizabeth  the  extreme  Cath- 
olics renounced  their  membership  in  the  Church  of 
England.*  When  James  I.,  in  1607,  uttered  his 
famous  tirade  against  the  Puritans,  who  sought  re- 
lief from  some  of  the  forms  of  the  church,  saying 
with  royal  spleen :  I  will  make  them  conform,  or  I 
will  harry  them  out  of  the  land,  then  the  Puritan 
saw  it  was  time  for  him  to  escape  from  bondage,  and 


*Making  of  New  England,  John  Fiske,  chap.  n. 


238  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

he  separated  himself  from  the  church  of  his  fathers. 
The  leader  of  this  band  was  William  Brewster,  of 
the  town  of  Scrooby,  in  Nottinghamshire.  Before 
Brewster,  men  called  fanatics  had  refused  to  con- 
form to  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  established 
church;  but  these,  like  all  forerunners,  had  to  go 
each  his  own  way,  and  left  no  permanent  result 
behind  them.  William  Brewster  was  a  Puritan 
who  hoped  to  reform  the  church  from  within, 
and  he  remained  in  the  church  until  the 
action  of  James  made  the  church  too  nar- 
row to  contain  men  of  his  type.  He  gath- 
ered together  a  company  of  men  and  women  who 
met  on  Sunday  for  divine  service  in  his  own  draw- 
ing room  at  Scrooby  Manor.  The  pastor  of  this 
congregation,  for  congregation  it  had  become,  was 
John  Robinson,  a  native  of  Lincolnshire.  This  man 
had  no  ordination  other  than  that  which  came  to 
him  from  God  and  from  the  choice  of  his  fellow- 
men.  He  was  learned,  gentle,  pious,  and,  for  his 
age,  tolerant,  and,  out  of  the  abundance  that  God 
had  given  him,  he  ministered  to  the  people.  Among 
those  who  gathered  together  every  Lord's  Day  in 
the  drawing  room  of  Scrooby  Manor  was  William 
Bradford,  a  lad  of  seventeen,  already  remarkable 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       239 

for  his  intelligence,  his  piety,  and  his  weight  of 
character.  He  was  destined  to  take  a  leading  part 
in  the  stirring  events  to  come.  The  meetings  of 
this  little  congregation  could  not  go  on  unmolested. 
Already  the  Stuarts  were  preparing  for  their  doom 
by  seeking  to  drive  their  subjects  into  their  own 
way  of  thinking  and  believing.  The  wrath  of  the 
King  was  hot  against  such  men  as  Brewster,  Rob- 
inson, and  Bradford.  And  these  followers  of  Jesus, 
remembering  the  words  of  the  Lord,  "When  they 
persecute  you  in  one  city,  flee  ye  unto  another,* — 
sought  safety  from  the  anger  of  James  by  flight  into 
Holland.  Under  the  guidance  of  Robinson,  they 
made  a  settlement  in  Leyden,  where  a  residence  of 
eleven  years  welded  them  into  a  compact  organic 
body. 

But  these  men  were  not  only  Christians ;  they  were 
also  Englishmen ;  and  they  desired  their  children  to 
be  born  Englishmen,  and  to  live  under  English  law. 
In  the  course  of  the  centuries  England  had  developed 
an  institution  that  reconciled  law  and  liberty.  This 
institution  was  representative  government.  The  an- 
cient democracies  had  failed  to  secure  both  law  and 
liberty  because  they  knew  of  no  way  for  the  people 


*St.  Matthew,  x. :  23. 


240  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

to  act  except  in  the  mass ;  and  the  mass  is  at  last  the 
mob,  and  the  mob  is  the  natural  prey  of  the  leader. 
The  imperial  system  was  the  necessary  outcome  of 
the  effort  to  extend  the  democratic  rule  of  Rome 
over  Europe.  The  only  way  that  Rome  could  rule 
was  by  having  the  central  government  send  agents 
out  to  rule  the  people.  This  is  imperialism  pure 
and  simple,  as  we  see  it  in  the  Empire  of  Russia 
and  in  the  Roman  Catholic  church  to-day,  and  it  was 
the  system  that  prevailed  all  over  the  continent  of 
Europe  until  the  nineteenth  century.  But  in  Eng- 
land another  system  of  government  was  devised. 
Instead  of  the  central  government,  sending  agents 
to  rule  the  people,  the  people  sent  agents  to  rule  the 
central  government.  The  English  people  kept  in 
their  own  hands  that  power  of  the  purse  without 
which  no  government  can  exist.  "No  taxation 
without  representation,"  is  the  watchword  of  Eng- 
lish civilization,  and  marks  the  difference  between 
modern  and  ancient  democracy. 

The  English  exiles  at  Leyden  craved  the  posses- 
sion and  exercise  of  their  political,  as  well 
as  of  their  religious,  rights  and  duties ;  indeed,  with 
them  their  religious  included  their  political  rights. 
Moved  by  these  considerations  the  Pilgrims  secured 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       241 

a  charter  and  set  sail  for  the  new  world.  Before 
landing  on  the  shores  of  their  future  country  these 
men  had  made  for  themselves  a  written  Constitu- 
tion, had  chosen  governor  and  councillors,  and  had 
organized  both  a  church  and  a  state.  In  this  organi- 
zation the  spiritual  power  was  supreme  and  the 
state  was  a  function  of  the  church. 

This  settlement  of  the  congregation  of  Leyden 
at  Plymouth  attracted  to  that  region  the  thought 
of  the  Puritan  element  in  England,  which  was  grow- 
ing more  and  more  restless  and  refractory  under 
the  limitations  of  the  English  establishment.  In 
the  early  years  of  Charles  I.  a  large  company  of 
Puritans  determined  to  migrate  and  establish  a  Pur- 
itan church  and  state  in  the  land  which  God  had  pro- 
vided for  them.  These  men  followed  in  the  wake 
of  the  Pilgrims  of  Leyden  and  settled  upon  the 
shores  of  Massachusetts  bay.  Before  leaving  Eng- 
land this  new  band  of  Puritans  elected  John  Win- 
throp  as  their  governor,  and,  like  the  men  of  Ley- 
den, migrated,  not  as  individuals,  but  as  an  organ- 
ized state.  They  were  perfectly  conscious  of  what 
they  were  doing  and  of  the  far-reaching  significance 
of  their  action.  They  believed  that  God  was  calling 
them  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  new  and  great 
REL.  &  POL.— 16 


242  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

Kingdom — a  Kingdom  in  which  God  should  be  the 
absolute  ruler  and  His  word  the  only  law.  The 
ideal  of  the  Puritan  was  a  Mosaic  theocracy  adapted 
to  the  form  and  principles  of  English  constitutional 
law.  This  union  of  religious  enthusiasm  with  the 
forms  of  practical  government  gave  stability  to  the 
Puritan  state,  and  is  the  secret  of  Puritan  domina- 
tion in  America. 

It  was  not  the  purpose  of  these  founders  of  the 
Puritan  commonwealth  to  grant  either  liberty  of 
thought  or  liberty  of  action.  Their  conception  of  the 
church  and  of  the  state  forbade  their  entertaining 
the  notion  of  what  we  call  religious  liberty.  In 
their  estimation  it  was  treason  to  doubt  the  plenary 
inspiration  of  the  Bible,  or  to  question  the  doctrines 
of  the  church.  They  endeavored  to  secure  the  ab- 
solute identity  of  church  and  state  by  limiting  po- 
litical privileges  to  the  members  of  the  church.  We 
cannot  in  this  lecture  enter  minutely  into  the  his- 
tory of  this  Puritan  state-church.  It  is  easy  to  speak 
scoffingly  of  the  bigotry  and  narrowness  of  the  Pur- 
itan, to  tell  lurid  stories  of  the  whipping  of  here- 
tics, the  hanging  of  women,  and  the  burning  of 
witches ;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  measure  the  moral 
value  and  the  spiritual  potency  of  that  conception 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       243 

of  the  state  which  looks  upon  it  as  the  instrument  of 
divine  justice;  which  teaches  that  officers  of  the 
state  are  the  vicegerents  of  God.  Such  a  concep- 
tion is  the  only  one  that  can  make  the  state  other 
than  a  merciless  machine.  If  the  state  is  not  divine 
it  is  brutal. 

And  when  to  this  conception  you  join  that  other 
pregnant  doctrine  of  which  the  Puritan  was  the  ex- 
ponent, which  declares  the  sacredness  and  the  right 
of  the  common  man;  when  you  make  every  man's 
destiny  an  expression  of  the  eternal  will  of  God, — 
then  you  have  a  foundation  for  government  which 
cannot  be  shaken.  Every  man  in  the  Puritan  con- 
ception is  a  church-state  in  himself.  In  the  man 
the  spiritual  power  must  be  supreme.  Conscience, 
not  interest,  must  be  the  guide  of  life.  Each  man 
is  a  divinely  inspired,  divinely  guided,  political  and 
spiritual  power,  and  the  state  is  simply  a  federation 
of  these  political  and  spiritual  units  in  a  general  gov- 
ernment. Each  man  is  to  have  his  voice  heard  and 
his  vote  counted  in  the  consideration  and  deter- 
mination of  the  affairs  of  state.  This  union  of  Teu- 
tonism  and  Hebraism;  this  marriage  of  Mosaic 
theocracy  to  English  democracy,  is  the  contribution 
of  English  Puritanism  to  the  political  life  of  the 


244  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

world,  and  the  modern  state  is  the  offspring  of  this 
union.  It  does  not  matter  that  the  Puritan  church- 
state  as  the  Puritan  conceived  it  did  not  outlast  the 
lives  of  the  first  generation.  That  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  In  the  very  nature  of  things  a  govern- 
ment based  upon  the  Calvinistic  interpretation  of 
Holy  Scripture  must  be  short-live^XBut,  while 
the  Puritan  church-state  failed  as  an  institution,  it 
endured  as  an  idea.  The  Puritan  influence  dom- 
inated all  other  influences  in  American  life  from  the 
landing  of  the  Pilgrims  down  to  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War.  The  south  contributed  to  the  American 
commonwealth  administrative  ability;  the  middle 
Atlantic  states  were  the  seat  of  commercial  activity 
and  kindly  philanthropy,  but  Puritan  New  England 
was  the  breeding  place  of  spiritual  enthusiasm  and 
high  moral  purpose.  It  was  the  belief  of  the  Pur- 
itan that  was  the  motive  power  of  the  American 
Revolution.  It  was  the  stern  conviction  of  the 
Puritan  that  not  King  George,  but  God,  was  the 
rightful  sovereign  in  America,  not  the  Parliament  of 
England,  but  the  people  of  the  united  Colonies,  were 
the  sole  keepers  of  the  purse  and  the  only  source  of 
political  power;  and  it  was  this  conviction  of  the 
Puritan  that  sustained  the  people  of  the  country 
through  the  long  years  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       245 

It  is  curious  to  remark  how,  up  to  the  days  of 
the  Civil  War,  and  in  a  measure  beyond  that  period, 
each  section  of  English  North  America  reflected  the 
character  of  the  first  settlers.  The  south  was  col- 
onized by  adventurous  sons  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry  of  England,  who  came  to  secure  for  them- 
selves estates  in  the  new  land  which  were  denied 
them  in  the  old.  These  men  lived,  not  in  towns,  but 
on  plantations ;  each  man  was  a  sovereign  lord  in 
his  own  domain,  having  servants  and  slaves  under 
him.  This  potentate  kept  his  chaplain  to  look  after 
his  spiritual  affairs,  as  he  kept  his  overseer  to  look 
after  his  temporal  affairs;  but  he  himself  looked 
sharply  after  both  chaplain  and  overseer.  He  be- 
lieved in  church  and  state,  with  the  church  in  duti- 
ful subjection  to  the  state.  The  south  was  the  nat- 
ural home  of  the  English  establishment;  the  clergy 
came  in  the  wake  of  the  gentry,  and  the  parish 
church  was  built  beside  the  county  court  house.  The 
southerner  called  the  name  of  his  new  countries  after 
the  name  of  his  queens  and  his  kings.  Virginia, 
Carolina,  and  Georgia  all  express  the  notion  that  the 
king  is  the  source  of  authority  and  the  state  an  en- 
tity in  and  of  itself.  This  southern  gentry  had  all 


246  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  virtues  and  vices  of  its  class.  It  was  given  to 
command;  it  was  brave  and  adventuresome;  it  was 
proud  and  arrogant ;  it  differentiated  the  poor  from 
the  rich,  the  landowner  from  the  landless,  and  put 
all  power  in  the  hands  of  the  landlord ;  it  made  labor 
servile,  and  subjected  the  great  mass  of  the  laborers 
to  absolute  ownership  and  control  of  the  ruling  class. 

The  southern  colonies  gave  to  the  nation  generals 
and  governors,  but  not  priests  nor  prophets.  Its 
clergy  were  the  servants  of  the  gentry  rather  than 
the  servants  of  God,  and  the  questions  that  agitated 
the  church  in  the  south  were  not  questions  of  doc- 
trine or  discipline;  they  were  questions  of  clerical 
salaries  and  ecclesiastical  status. 

The  Puritan  and  southern  conception  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  state  and  the  church  gave  rise  to  dis- 
tinct and  hostile  civilizations  which  struggled  for 
the  mastery  on  American  soil  for  nearly  a  century. 
When  at  last  these  two  conceptions  came  into  col- 
lision the  Puritan  prevailed  over  the  southern  and 
reduced  it  to  subjection.  As  in  the  Revolutionary, 
so  in  the  Civil  War,  it  was  the  New  England  Puri- 
tan that  gave  the  spiritual  enthusiasm  and  moral 
purpose  to  the  struggle.  It  was  Lloyd  Garrison, 
Wendell  Phillips,  John  G.  Whittier,  Owen  Love  joy, 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       247 

and  John  Brown  that  were  the  prophets  and  mar- 
tyrs of  the  cause.  The  south  in  the  person  of  Lin- 
coln gave  administrative  ability,  but  the  spirit  that 
sustained  and  guided  the  contest  was  the  spirit  of 
New  England. 

The  Middle  Atlantic  states  were  settled  very 
largely  for  commercial  reasons.  It  was  the  canny 
Hollander,  intent  on  gain,  that  cast  anchor  on  the 
shores  of  Manhattan  island  and  the  canny  Hollander 
reigns  there  still.  He  was  something  of  a  Puritan 
himself,  but  his  puritanism  had  never  been  able  to 
quite  get  the  better  of  his  prudence.  His  struggle 
with  Spain  had  been  a  struggle  for  existence, — not 
so  much  for  political  and  religious  liberty  as  for 
the  right  to  live.  When  once  the  Hollander  was 
free  to  do  as  he  pleased  he  turned  his  attention  to 
commerce  and  made  riches  the  goal  of  his  ambition. 
He  had  neither  the  political  training  nor  the  stiff- 
necked  fanaticism  of  the  English  Puritan,  but  he 
had  a  commercial  genius  which  gave  him  in  a  single 
generation  the  commercial  leadership  of  the  world. 
The  commercial  instinct  of  the  Hollander  made  him 
see  at  once  the  vast  commercial  advantage  of  the 
Island  of  Manhattan,  and  there  he  planted  his  colony 
and  gave  a  character  to  that  island  which  it  has  not 


248  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

lost  to  this  day.  The  city  on  the  Island  of  Man- 
hattan is  fast  becoming  the  center  of  the  world's 
exchanges  and  the  commercial  capital  of  mankind. 
With  this  spirit  of  commercialism  the  spirit  of  Puri- 
tanism is  now  in  deadly  conflict,  and  upon  the  is- 
sue of  that  conflict  depends,  not  only  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  the  people  of  America,  but  also  the  spir- 
itual history  and  spiritual  welfare  of  the  world  for 
ages  to  come.  The  warfare  that  is  waging  to-day 
is  the  warfare  between  the  merchant  and  the  minis- 
ter; the  minister,  who  believes  in  God,  the  mer- 
chant, who  believes  in  gain;  the  minister,  who  be- 
lieves that  man  is  a  person,  the  merchant  who  be- 
lieves that  man  is  a  thing. 

Our  study  of  history  has  shown  us  that  there  are 
only  two  possible  relations  of  church  and  state.  Ei- 
ther the  church  must  be  in  subjection  to  the  state, 
or  the  state  to  the  church;  that  is,  either  spiritual 
or  material  interests  must  prevail.  In  all  great 
formative  periods  it  is  the  spiritual  interests  that 
are  supreme ;  in  all  times  of  degeneration  and  decay 
material  concerns  have  the  upper  hand.  To  speak 
of  the  separation  of  church  and  state  is  to  speak  of 
the  separation  of  soul  and  body.  If  the  state  is  with- 
out a  church  it  is  without  warrant  in  the  conscience 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       249 

of  man ;  if  the  church  is  without  a  state  it  is  without 
power  in  the  life  of  the  world.  The  church  without 
the  state  is  a  disembodied  spirit;  the  state  without 
the  church  is  a  putrefying  corpse.  When  the  church 
is  true  to  itself  and  true  to  its  God  it  becomes  the 
conscience  of  the  state.  Then  the  state  must  be  in 
subjection  to  the  church,  or  the  state  must  perish. 
When  the  church  forgets  its  high  calling,  and  be- 
comes simply  a  function  of  the  state,  then  both 
church  and  state  go  down  in  one  common  ruin. 

The  present  separation  of  the  religious  from  the 
civil  and  political  life  of  the  nation  is  cause  for 
grave  apprehension  for  the  future  of  the  American 
people.  A  glance  at  the  religious  phenomena  of  our 
time  and  country  will  reveal  strange  and  startling 
facts. 

Were  a  Paul  of  Tarsus  to  visit  us  as  he  visited 
the  Athenians,  he  would  cry  to  us,  as  he  did  to  them  : 
"I  perceive  that  in  all  things  ye  are  very  religious." 
The  outward  forms  of  religion  are  in  in  evidence 
with  us  as  they  were  with  the  Athenians  of  the 
Apostolic  age.  The  Athenian  still  paid  homage  by 
cult  and  ceremony  to  the  gods  of  Olympus.  He  was 
careful  to  have  the  twelve  major  and  all  the  minor 
divinities  represented  by  the  altars  of  his  city;  and, 


250  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

lest  he  should  have  overlooked  someone  of  the  heav- 
enly hierarchy,  he  built  an  altar  to  the  unknown 
God.  As  in  Athens,  so  to-day  every  phase  and  form 
of  the  great  Christian  cult  is  represented  in  the  re- 
ligious life  of  America.  In  this  year  of  grace,  the 
nineteen  hundred  and  fifth,  there  are  28,689,  °2^* 
persons  enrolled  as  Christians  upon  the  books  of  the 
various  ecclesiastical  bodies.  These  persons  are  in- 
cluded in  143,  more  or  less,  religious  corporations 
which  are  in  competition  for  membership.  The  two 
great  sections  of  Christendom,  the  Protestant  and 
the  Catholic,  divide  this  Christian  membership  un- 
evenly between  them,  about  two  thirds  of  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  country  are  registered  in  the  Protestant 
societies,  and  about  one  third  in  the  Catholic 
churches. 

The  Protestants  are  mainly  included  in  seven 
great  denominations,  Methodists,  Baptists,  Luther- 
ans; Disciples  of  Christ,  Presbyterian,  Congrega- 
tional, and  Episcopal. 

The  Catholics  are  for  the  most  part  emigrants  and 
children  of  emigrants,  who  have  come  into  this 
country  since  the  middle  of  the  last  century  and  who 
derive  their  notions  of  life  and  government  from 


The  World  Almanac. 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       251 

Latin  and  Celtic,  rather  than  from  English,  sources. 
Maryland  was,  indeed,  settled  by  English  Catholics 
dissatisfied,  as  were  the  Puritans,  with  the  settle- 
ment of  Elizabeth.  But  the  Catholics  of  Maryland, 
like  the  Catholics  of  England,  were  never  sufficiently 
numerous  or  important  to  influence  to  any  degree 
the  polity  either  of  their  church  or  their  country. 
The  Catholic  church  in  America  to-day  is  Celtic, 
Latin,  and  South  Germanic,  and  embodies  the  tone 
and  temper  of  these  races  rather  than  of  the  English. 
In  the  Catholic  body  we  have  among  us  the  me- 
diaeval church  and  the  mediaeval  Empire.  In  the 
government  of  this  vast  organization  the  people 
have  no  voice.  Power  is  centralized  in  the  hier- 
archy; the  hierarchy  centers  in  the  Pope,  who  ap- 
points his  bishops  and  sends  his  legates  to  rule  his 
people.  The  Pope  and  the  Czar  are  the  last  repre- 
sentatives in  Europe  of  the  ancient  imperial  system 
of  ruling  church  and  state. 

The  Lutheran  body  is  composed  of  emigrants  and 
children  of  emigrants  from  Protestant  Germany.  It 
represents  the  German  love  of  the  Fatherland,  and 
the  conservative  theological  thought  of  the  German 
people. 

Passing  to  the  other  Protestant  denominations,  we 


252  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

find  that  the  Methodists  are  the  most  numerous  and 
the  most  democratic.  The  Methodist  body  owes 
its  origin  to  that  great  movement  among  the  English 
people;  led  by  a  simple  priest  of  the  Church  of 
England,  which  broke  up  the  repose  of  the  English 
establishment,  which  revived  religion  and  reformed 
the  world.  The  Methodists  in  America  are  the  con- 
verts and  descendants  of  the  converts  of  those  he- 
roic circuit  riders  who  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  and  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  centuries 
traveled  from  settlement  to  settlement  in  the  wil- 
derness preaching  the  pardoning  grace  of  God.  To 
these  preachers  the  middle  west  owes  its  Christian- 
ity and  civilization,  and  the  middle  west  is  the  chief 
'home  of  Methodism  to  this  day.  The  Baptists  and 
the  Disciples  of  Christ  form  really  one  great  body, 
and  have  their  principal  habitat  in  the  mountainous 
region  of  the  south.  It  is  in  that  region  that  you 
find  to-day  a  survival  of  the  stern,  hardshell,  close- 
communion  Baptist,  who  holds  immersion  necessary 
to  salvation,  and  looks  upon  the  unimmersed  as  out- 
side the  covenanted  mercies  of  God.  In  the  north 
the  Baptist  communion  includes  much  of  the  cul- 
ture and  wealth  of  the  country,  and,  while  still  prac- 
ticing the  Baptist  forms,  does  not  exclude  the  rest 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       253 

of   Christendom   from   membership   in  the  church 
of  Christ. 

The  Presbyterian  church  represents  the  sturdy 
Scotch  element  in  American  life.  It  is  strongly 
English  in  its  political  tendencies,  and  Calvinistic 
in  its  theology.  Its  membership  is  evenly  distributed 
over  the  country,  and  is  made  up  largely  of  the  suc- 
cessful men  of  business.  The  Congregational  body, 
together  with  its  offspring,  the  Unitarian,  has  its 
headquarters  in  Boston,  and  is  most  numerous  in 
New  England.  It  is  the  direct  heir  of  the  Puritan, 
and  is  the  church  of  the  scholar,  the  reformer,  and 
the  mystic.  The  Episcopal  church  is  the  daughter 
of  the  Established  Church  of  England,  with  which 
it  is  in  communion.  It  looks  to  Oxford  for  its  theol- 
ogy, and  to  the  hierarchy  of  England  as  the  source 
of  its  spiritual  life.  It  holds  that  Episcopal  ordina- 
tion is  necessary  to  the  validity  of  the  ministry,  and 
maintains  the  position  of  isolation  among  the  Chris- 
tian churches  which  is  the  characteristic  of  the  Eng' 
lish  communion.  It  claims  to  keep  the  middle  way 
between  Romanism  and  Protestantism,  and  hopes 
to  bring  the  whole  world  to  accept  its  position  of 
compromise.  It  is  divided  into  two  parties,  the 
high  and  the  broad,  or  conservatives  and  liberals. 


254  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

The  high  church  party  is  strongest  with  the  clergy, 
and  the  broad  with  the  laity.  This  church  centers  in 
New  York,  and  its  stronghold  is  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board. It  is  the  church  of  the  banker  and  the  law- 
yer, and  leads  the  conservative  element  in  social  and 
political  life.  The  smaller  Christian  bodies  are  the 
representatives  of  certain  narrow  phases  of  discipline 
or  doctrine,  and  are  not  influential  in  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  country. 

We  find  thus,  upon  examination,  that  we  have  28,- 
000,000  of  Christians,  officered  by  114,000  men  di- 
vided into  eight  principal  camps ;  and,  when  we  con- 
sider the  promise  of  Jesus  that  He  would  be  with 
two  or  three  of  His  followers,  and  that  He  would 
grant  their  prayers, — we  cannot  help  asking,  What 
are  these  Christians  praying  for  to-day?  Are  they 
asking  for  justice  in  the  state,  for  purity  in  social 
life,  for  honesty  and  fair  dealing  in  business,  for 
mercy  toward  the  weak  and  pity  for  the  erring? 
Are  they  praying  for  peace  upon  earth  and  good  will 
toward  men,  And,  if  so,  why  are  their  prayers  not 
answered?  Why  are  we  to-day  in  the  hand  of  the 
political  spoiler?  Why  are  our  cities  reeking  with 
impurity?  Why  are  our  politics  our  shame  and  re- 
proach? Why  is  our  society  a  society  of  broken 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.       255 

homes  and  childless  women?  Why  are  the  weak 
crying  for  succor,  and  the  sinner  dying  for  want 
of  pardon? 


The   Commercialized   Church   in 
the  Commercialized  State. 

On  the  morning  of  January  30,  1905,  the  mayor 
of  the  city  of  Rochester,  in  the  state  of  New  York, 
read  an  able  paper  on  municipal  government  before 
the  ministerial  association  of  that  city.  The  mayor 
opened  his  discussion  with  the  statement  that  the 
church  and  state  have  now  no  organic  relation.  The 
only  survival  of  the  bond  of  union  which  once 
united  these  two  institutions  is  the  formal  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  sovereignty  of  God  which  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  oath  of  office  that  the  state  requires 
of  its  officers  as  they  enter  upon  their  duties.  This 
oath  of  office  is  a  solemn  religious  act,  giving  divine 
sanction  to  the  functions  of  the  legal  officer.  When 
the  mayor  takes  this  oath  he  is  bound,  not  simply  to 
the  service  of  the  people,  but  also  and  more  solemnly 
to  the  service  of  God.  He  is  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the  word  an  ordained,  consecrated  man.  Like 
the  King  of  Israel,  he  is  the  Lord's  annointed,  and 
to  the  Lord  he  must  give  an  account.  When  an  of- 
ficer of  the  state  takes  his  oath  of  office  seriously  he 
[256] 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          257 

makes  of  the  state  a  religious  institution,  it  rests, 
not  only  in  the  consent  of  the  people,  but  also  upon 
the  will  of  God.  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  first  inaugural 
address  declared  his  intention  of  maintaining  the 
Constitution  and  enforcing  the  laws  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  then,  pleading 
with  the  men  of  the  south,  he  said :  "You  have  no 
oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  govern- 
ment, while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  pre- 
serve, protect,  and  defend  it."*  Then  the  great, 
gaunt  man  lifted  up  his  hand  and  called  God  to  wit- 
ness that  in  all  he  did  or  said  he  was  the  servant, 
not  simply  of  human  law,  but  also  of  divine  justice, 
and  from  that  day  the  man  went  as  one  who  was  set 
apart  to  the  service  of  God.* 

So,  the  mayor  of  Rochester,  in  calling  the  atten- 
tion of  the  ministers  to  the  fact  that  he  "had  reg- 
istered an  oath  in  heaven"  to  enforce  the  laws  of 
the  city  and  protect  its  interests  against  all  comers, 
certified  to  his  hearers  that  he,  like  Melchizedek, 
King  of  Salem,  was  a  priest  of  the  most  high  God 
and  a  minister  about  holy  things.  I  do  not  think 
that  either  the  mayor  or  the  ministers  recognized 
the  full  significance  of  this  passing  allusion  to  the 


""Lincoln,  ist  Inaugural. 
REL.&  POL.— 17 


258  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

oath  of  office.  I  fear  both  minister  and  mayor  failed 
to  see  that  the  oath  of  office,  if  other  than  an  idle 
form  or  a  bit  of  blasphemy,  gives  divine  sanction 
to  civil  life,  and  makes  of  the  mayor,  a  minister  of 
religion.* 

This  inattention  to  an  important  fact  and  a  great 
underlying  principle  arose  from  an  inveterate  habit 
on  the  part  of  both  mayor  and  minister  of  inclosing 
human  life  into  two  compartments  which  have  no 
opening  into  each  other.  These  compartments  are 
the  secular  and  the  sacred.  The  secular  incloses  the 
mayor  and  all  that  belongs  to  him;  the  sacred  in- 
closes the  ministers  and  all  that  belongs  to  them. 
The  mayor  came  to  the  ministers,  as  a  messenger 
might  come  from  Mars,  to  let  these  inhabitants  of 
another  sphere  into  the  secrets  of  his  own  planetary 
existence.  With  a  naivete  that  was  charming,  the 
mayor  took  for  granted  that  the  ministers  would 
not  be  interested  in  anything  that  lay  outside  their 
own  circle  of  being.  The  only  function  of  the  city 
government  which  he  explained  at  any  length  was 
that  which  has  to  do  with  the  closing  of  the  saloons 


*The  oath  of  office  is  simply  a  declaration  of  the  sacred 
character  of  the  mayor's  office.  The  oath  is  nothing;  the 
sacredness  everything. 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          259 

on  Sunday.  Again,  I  fear  that  neither  the  mayor  nor 
the  ministers  were  conscious  of  the  latent  sarcasm 
that  thus,  by  implication,  limited  the  interests  of 
the  ministers.  It  was  nothing  to  them  whether  the 
homes  of  the  people  of  their  city  were  wholesome  or 
unwholesome;  nothing  to  them  whether  the  officers 
of  their  city  were  honest  or  corrupt;  nothing  to 
them  whether  the  children  of  their  city  were  being 
trained  to  wisdom  or  to  folly;  nothing  to  them 
whether  the  streets  of  their  city  were  hideous  or 
beautiful ;  nothing  to  them  that  the  merchants  of 
the  city  turned  girls  and  women  by  the  thousand 
out  into  the  streets  of  the  city  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  these  girls  and  women  exhausted  by  sixteen 
hours  of  toil,  left,  so  far  as  the  merchants  were  con- 
cerned, to  become  the  prey  of  any  passerby.  All 
this  was  secular,  and  did  not  concern  the  minister. 
It  was  the  opening  of  the  saloon  on  Sunday  that 
roused  his  interest,  because  Sunday  is  the  little  bit 
of  time  which  he  has  tried  to  enclose  in  his  sacred 
compartment,  and  claims  as  his  own.  The  Sunday 
saloon  encroaches  upon  the  territory  of  the  Sunday 
church,  and  if  the  Sunday  saloon  be  opened  the 
ministers  fear  that  the  Sunday  church  may  have  to 
be  closed,  and  the  occupation  of  the  minister  be  gone. 


260  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

I  have  seen  many  strange  sights  in  this  strange 
world  in  which  I  find  myself  a  sojourner,  but  never 
a  stranger, — sadder  sight  than  to  see  four-score  men 
sitting,  not  only  silent,  but  contented,  under  an  im- 
plication that  proclaimed  their  own  utter  impotence 
and  the  impotence  of  their  God.  For,  if  the  minister, 
with  God  on  his  side,  cannot  win  out  against  the 
barkeeper  in  a  fair  and  open  competition,  then  what 
is  the  use  of  the  minister,  and  where  is  the  power 
of  his  God. 

The  mayor  did  say  that,  if  the  ministers  could  get 
out  of  their  compartment  and  get  into  his  they  could, 
if  they  would,  help  him  in  the  exercise  of  the  func- 
tions of  his  sacred  office.  The  mayor  confessed,  that 
with  the  best  will  in  the  world  he  was  not  free  to 
do  what  he  thought  for  the  highest  interests  of  the 
city.  Because  of  a  certain  evil  power  which  was 
strong  and  rampant  in  his  compartment,  he  was 
sore  let  and  hindered  in  doing  the  work  that  was 
set  before  him,  and  he  prayed  the  ministers  for  help. 
But,  as  he  mentioned  the  name  of  this  power,  every 
minister  that  heard  that  name  shuddered;  for  he 
knew  that  the  self-same  power  was  in  his  compart- 
ment, keeping  him  from  the  full  performance  of  his 
duty.  The  name  of  the  power  that  checked  the 
mayor  and  throttled  the  minister  was  "money." 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          261 

The  church  and  state  might  be  separate  worlds, 
their  orbits  intersecting  only  at  the  Sunday  laws, 
but  they  were  both  revolving  in  the  atmosphere  of 
a  corrupt  commercialism.* 

This  power  which  has  silenced  the  voice  of  the 
church  and  paralyzed  the  Constitution  of  the  state 
began  to  dominate  both  church  and  state  immediately 
after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  In  the  first  or  con- 
stitutional period  of  American  history,  which  ended 
with  the  administration  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  the 
American  people  were  engaged  in  the  work  of  es- 
tablishing a  stable  government  which  should  secure 
to  themselves  and  to  their  children  the  liberties  for 
which  they  had  struggled  in  the  Revolutionary  era. 
In  that  period  the  will  of  the  people  was  supreme  in 
the  choice  of  the  officers  of  the  government  and  the 
affairs  of  state  were  in  the  hands  of  men  who  were 
consecrated  to  their  task  by  a  sense  of  obligation  to 
their  conscience  and  their  God.  Webster  in  the 
Senate,  Marshall  and  Story  on  the  Bench,  and 
Quincy  Adams  in  the  Presidential  chair,  were  the 
kind  of  men  found  in  public  life  in  the  first  period 


*Commerce  should  be  the  servant,  not  the  master,  of 
church  and  state.  As  a  servant,  it  is  ennobling;  as  a 
master,  a  depraving  influence  in  human  life. 


262  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

of  our  history.  At  this  time  our  country  was  mainly 
agricultural,  and  the  industrial  life  centered  in  the 
farm.  Commerce  or  trading  was  in  the  hands  of 
individual  merchants,  who  were  known  by  name, 
and  were  directly  responsible  to  the  people  of  their 
vicinage  for  their  actions.  The  press  was  used  for 
the  expression  of  personal  opinion,  and  centered  in 
the  editor.  The  church  exercised  the  office  of 
moral  and  spiritual  guidance ;  it  was  mainly  Protes- 
tant and  Puritan,  and  the  minister  was  a  highly  re- 
spected member  of  the  community.  This  primitive 
period  of  American  history  was,  of  course,  not  per- 
fect, but  it  was  healthy;  the  state  and  the  church, 
commerce  and  agriculture,  were  each  exercising 
their  normal  functions.  The  English  race  was  still 
fairly  pure  and  immensely  prolific,  and  the  family 
was  the  seat  of  a  stern  domestic  government.  Di- 
vorce was  rare,  and  barrenness  uncommon. 

The  next  period  of  national  history,  beginning 
with  the  election  of  Andrew  Jackson  and  ending 
with  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War,  was  marked  by 
the  rise  of  party  politics  and  the  great  Irish  and  Ger- 
man migrations.  In  this  period  Americans  began 
to  consciously  seek  office  for  the  sake  of  the  emolu- 
ment connected  therewith.  The  powerful  politician 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          263 

whose  business  it  was  to  manipulate  conventions  and 
carry  elections  made  his  appearance  in  the  persons 
of  Amos  Kendall  and  Thurlow  Weed.  Our  elec- 
tions from  that  period  have  been  not  simply  the  con- 
test of  two  differing  policies  for  supremacy,  but  a 
battle  of  the  ins  and  outs  for  the  offices.  During 
this  period  the  common  man  of  the  country  became 
conscious  of  his  power:  the  old  Federal  aristocracy 
gave  place  to  the  new  democracy,  of  which  Jack- 
son was  the  type.  The  vast  emigration  from  Ireland 
and  Germany  brought  the  Catholic  church  into  im- 
mediate juxtaposition  to  the  native  Protestant  bodies 
and  the  spiritual  force  of  the  country  was  drawn 
more  and  more  from  the  direction  of  civil  and  social 
affairs  into  the  channels  of  ecclesiastical  warfare  and 
theological  discussion.  The  use  of  steam  and  ma- 
chinery stilled  the  hum  of  the  spinning  wheel  in  the 
farm  house,  destroyed  in  a  measure  the  independ- 
ence of  the  farmer,  and  centered  industrial  life  in 
the  factory  and  the  city.  Commerce  was  still,  in 
this  period,  in  the  hands  mainly  of  individual  mer- 
chants directly  responsible  to  the  people.  It  was 
a  period  strongly  individualistic  and  competitive. 
The  leaders  of  the  mercantile  world  were  such  men 
as  A.  A.  Low,  George  Peabody,  and  Moses  Taylor, 


264  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

men  of  high  character  and  strong  religious  convic- 
tion who  looked  upon  their  wealth  as  a  trust  which 
they  held  from  God  for  the  use  of  the  people. 

With  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War  the  struggle 
of  the  slave  power  for  supremacy  reached  its  acute 
stage.  For  the  next  twenty-five  years  the  people  of 
the  United  States  were  absorbed  in  a  contest  which 
was  to  determine  whether  this  country  were  to  be 
all  slave  or  all  free.  The  spiritual  forces  of  the 
country  escaping  the  control  of  the  formal  religions, 
were  occupied  in  the  warfare  of  freedom  against 
slavery.  The  abolitionist  found  himself  excom- 
municate. When  Thomas  Morris,  the  leader  of 
abolitionism  in  Ohio,  made  his  famous  speech 
against  Clay  in  the  United  States  Senate,  ending 
with  the  words:  "The  negro  shall  yet  be  free,"* 
he  was  read  out  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  be- 
came a  political  outcast,  and  when  he  died  he  was 
denied  burial  by  the  Methodist  church.  The  failure 
of  the  churchf  to  grasp  the  moral  significance  of 
the  slavery  agitation  lowered  its  prestige,  and  gave 
its  power  into  the  hands  of  men  of  the  people.  The 
highest  type  of  man  in  that  age  was  everywhere 


*Life  of  Thomas  Morris,  B.  F.  Morris. 
tThe  last  defense  of  slavery  was  written  by  the  presiding 
bishop  of  the  Episcopal  church. 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          265 

alienated  from  the  churches.  Whittier,  the  saintly 
poet;  Emerson,  the  seer;  Garrison  and  Phillips,  the 
prophets ;  Brown,  the  martyr ;  Sumner,  the  tribune, 
and  Lincoln,  the  far-seeing  moral  statesman,  were  all 
of  them  outside  and  some  of  them  under  the  ban  of 
the  Orthodox  churches.  The  fall  of  Puritanism  as 
a  theological  system  controlling  American  thought, 
which  was  the  consequence  of  this  failure  of  the 
ministry  as  a  class  to  see  the  moral  question  involved 
in  the  slavery  agitation  and  which  was  precipitated 
by  the  Unitarian  secession,  left  the  American  people 
without  any  formal  theological  system  in  which  to 
center  their  thought  and  life,  and  the  result  is  the 
theological  chaos  and  the  religious  paralysis  in  the 
midst  of  which  we  are  now  living. 

The  close  of  the  Civil  War  was  followed  by  moral 
exhaustion.  The  prophets  and  the  priests,  the  mar- 
tyrs and  the  soldiers,  of  the  slavery  crusade  had  lost 
their  lives  in  gaining  their  cause.  Lincoln  was  dead, 
Sumner  was  dead,  Whittier  was  dead,  Phillips  was 
dead,  Emerson  was  dead,  Beecher  was  decadent,  and 
over  the  dead  and  dying  bodies  of  these  heroes  a 
new  power  arose  to  claim  supremacy  in  the  land, 
and  this  power  was  the  power  of  the  merchant.  The 
man  of  the  purse  assumed  the  leadership  which  had 


266  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

until  then  been  held  by  the  man  of  the  pen  and  the 
man  of  the  sword.  Before  the  people  were  aware, 
within  ten  years  of  the  war,  American  life  was  com- 
mercialized, and  both  church  and  state  were  in  the 
power  of  the  mercantile  class.  It  was  this  class, 
and  this  class  only,  that  profited  by  the  war.  When 
the  war  closed  the  mercantile  class  were  in  posses- 
sion of  the  bonded  debt  of  the  country,  which 
amounted  to  $2,400,  000,000,*  with  an  annual  inter- 
est charge  of  $150,000,000.  The  mercantile  class  had 
paid  about  33  1/3  cents  in  gold  on  a  dollar  for  these 
bonds,  and  had  purchased  them  for  the  most  part, 
not  in  money,  but  in  army  supplies  sold  at  a  fabulous 
profit.  While  the  soldier  was  dying  on  the  battle- 
field, and  the  people  were  sacrificing  every  comfort, 
the  army  contractor  was  growing  rich  by  taking 
advantage  of  the  necessities  of  his  country.  As  soon 
as  the  war  was  over  the  people  set  to  work  to  pay 
off  every  dollar  of  this  debt  in  gold  coin.  This  de- 
termination of  the  people  made  the  bonds  which  had 
been  purchased  for  33  1/3  cents  on  the  dollar,  worth 
from  no  to  130  cents  on  the  par  value.  And  all  this 
immense  accretion  of  value  went  to  enrich  the  mer- 
cantile class.  And  it  was  this  war  debt  which  was 


*Channing,  History  United  States,  p.  559. 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          267 

the  source  of  their  power  over  the  political,  social, 
and  religious  life  of  the  country. 

The  era  of  industrial  organization  and  concentra- 
tion in  which  we  now  live  dates  with  the  close  of 
the  Civil  War.  Before  the  war  there  had  been  signs 
of  the  coming  time.  Rochester  was  the  headquar- 
ters of  one  of  the  earliest  of  those  vast  corporations 
which  are  now  so  common  in  the  industrial  world. 
Certain  merchants  formed  a  corporation  and  pur- 
chased the  stock  of  the  various  telegraph  companies 
which  were  operating  in  the  Western  States,  and 
the  economies  incident  upon  consolidation  and  reor- 
ganization made  these  profitless  properties  profit- 
able, and  made  the  stock  which  had  been  purchased 
at  a  low  rate  worth  more  than  its  face  value.  About 
the  same  time  the  railroads  of  New  York  and  Penn- 
sylvania were  consolidated  into  trunk  lines  and  the 
New  York  Central,  and  Pennsylvania  ,  railroad 
stock  became  a  part  of  the  current  wealth  of  the 
country.  This  immense  increase  of  available  wealth 
added  to  the  inflated  currency  of  the  country,  gave 
rise  to  an  era  of  speculative  railroad  building.  Two 
transcontinental  roads  were  projected  and  brought 
to  completion,  and  thousands  of  miles  of  rails  were 
laid  in  the  wilderness.  Then  it  was  that  the  money 


268  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

power  began  to  make  itself  felt  in  the  political  life 
of  the  country.  For  a  consideration  Congress  was 
persuaded  to  give  millions  of  acres  of  the  public 
lands  to  private  corporations,  and  to  loan  these  cor- 
porations millions  of  money. 

The  sound  of  the  guns  of  the  Civil  War  had  hard- 
ly died  away  before  this  foe  of  civil  purity,  corrupt 
commercialism,  began  to  threaten  the  liberties  of  the 
country.  In  the  last  Congress  of  the  Johnson  ad- 
ministration and  the  first  Congress  of  the  Grant  ad- 
ministration the  railroad  companies  had  their  paid 
agent  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  per- 
son of  Oaks  Ames,  and  the  stock  of  the  Credit 
Mobilier  was  freely  used  to  secure  desired  legisla- 
tion. The  name  of  the  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  was  tainted  with  corruption.  The  reputation 
of  the  most  popular  politician  and  statesman  of 
the  day  was  smirched,  and  his  political  career  ar- 
rested. But  the  main  field  in  which  the  railroad 
exploiter  evinced  his  skill  was  not  in  the  United 
States  Congress  with  its  limited  power;  it  was  in 
the  legislatures  of  the  states,  and  in  the  common 
councils  of  the  cities,  with  their  power  to  grant 
charters  and  privileges.  I  need  not  rehearse  the 
shameful  history  of  the  Gould-Fisk  outrage  upon  the 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          269 

rights  of  the  people  in  New  York  and  adjacent 
states.  These  men  bought  legislatures,  common 
councils,  and  judges  of  court  as  they  would  buy 
cattle  in  the  market.  They  entrenched  themselves 
like  banditti,  and  defied  the  process  of  law.  They 
made  common  cause  with  the  Tweed  ring  in  New 
York,  and  were  as  brazen  as  a  harlot  in  their  work 
of  corruption.  They  bought  everything  they  wanted 
from  judicial  integrity  to  woman's  honor,  and  they 
paraded  their  purchase  in  the  sight  of  the  world. 
They  made  no  secret  of  the  ownership  of  Judge  Car- 
doza,  and  Fisk  paraded  Jessie  Mansfield  in  an  open 
carriage  drawn  by  four  horses  through  the  streets 
of  New  York.  What  these  men  did  openly  was  done 
secretly  on  a  far  more  extensive  scale  by  men  whose 
reputation  remained  untarnished,  and  who  attended 
divine  service  with  the  regularity  of  a  devotee.  Dur- 
ing his  palmy  days  the  anteroom  of  William  Tweed 
was  crowded  with  leading  merchants  seeking  special 
privileges  and  exemptions  from  the  common  council 
of  which  Tweed  was  the  owner.  It  was  proved  in 
the  Lexow  investigation  that  it  was  really  the  mer- 
chants of  New  York  who  employed  Croker  and  gave 
him  his  power. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  corrupt  commercialism 


270  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

subverted  representative  government,  and  substi- 
tuted personal  and  semi-imperial  government  in  its 
room.  It  did  this  by  laying  hold  of  and  manipulat- 
ing the  party  organizations  in  its  own  interests. 
This  corrupt  commercial  class  had  no  political,  as 
it  has  no  religious,  convictions.  It  was  Republican 
or  Democratic  as  suited  its  purposes.  Its  stronghold 
was  the  party  primary,  which  it  used  to  establish 
and  maintain  its  control  of  the  political  life  of  the 
country.  It  left  to  the  people  the  forms  of  liberty, 
but  all  real  power  was  in  the  hands  of  one  man,  who 
was  the  agent  of  the  commercial  class  in  its  deal- 
ing with  the  politicians.  This  system  of  government 
has  fastened  itself  as  a  fungus  upon  the  formal  gov- 
ernments of  the  country,  and  is  slowly  but  surely 
sapping  their  strength  and  taking  away  their  life. 
I  need  not  go  into  detail;  the  matter  is  notorious, 
and  the  mayor  confessed  that  he,  the  elected  magis- 
trate of  the  people,  was  more  or  less  in  subjection 
to  this  power  which  the  people  did  not  set  up,  but 
which  was  an  alliance  between  the  commercial  and 
political  classes  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  the 
official  government  and  making  it  subservient  to 
their  private  and  personal  ends.  And  what  is  a  mild 
case  of  varioloid  in  Rochester  is  virulent  smallpox 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          271 

in  other  and  richer  cities ;  and  as  for  the  states,  the 
ordinary  citizen  has  quite  given  them  up  in  despair. 
He  goes  through  the  form  of  voting  for  governor, 
but  he  knows  that  he  has  no  more  voice  in  the  choice 
of  the  governor  of  the  state  than  the  Roman  people 
had  in  the  choice  of  their  consul  in  the  days  of  the 
Roman  Empire. 

It  was  the  commercialization  of  industry  that 
made  possible  the  commercialization  of  the  state. 
Before  the  present  organization  of  industry,  in  the 
days  of  the  individual  shop  and  factory,  the  man 
who  owned  the  shop  or  the  factory  had  risen  from 
the  ranks  of  labor  in  his  line  of  life;  his  business 
was  the  product  of  his  savings  and  his  skill ;  he  was 
in  touch  with  his  workmen  as  being  himself  one  of 
them.  But  immediately  before,  during,  and  since 
the  Civil  War  the  owners  of  the  great  shops  and  fac- 
tories are  not  skilled  workmen ;  they  are  simply  mer- 
chants. They  buy  and  sell  human  skill  and  human 
labor  as  they  buy  and  sell  raw  cotton  and  sugar. 
This  system  places  the  worker  entirely  at  the  mercy 
of  the  buyer  and  seller;  and  the  conflict  which  is 
now  going  on  between  these  two  classes,  is  a  con- 
flict, not  only  to  determine  the  relative  status  of  these 
two  classes,  but  it  is  to  determine  the  character  of 


272  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  government  of  the  country  for  ages  to  come. 
The  issue  of  this  contest  will  decide  whether  Amer- 
ica is  to  be  a  Democracy  of  the  English  type  or  an 
Empire  of  the  Roman  type;  whether  the  people  as 
a  whole  are  to  rule,  or  be  ruled.  At  present 
the  commercial  class  rules.  It  is  in  possession  of  the 
government  and  makes  the  laws;  it  is  the  employer 
of  the  professional  and  industrial  classes,  and  holds 
them  in  subjection;  it  is  in  possession  of  the  public 
utilities,  and  can  levy  taxes  upon  the  people  without 
their  consent. 

It  rules  in  social  life  as  well  as  in  the  state,  and 
•makes  money  the  measure  of  the  man.  "See,  there 
is  the  great  Schwab,"  said  a  business  man  of  New 
York  to  me  one  day.  "Why  the  great  Schwab?" 
said  I.  "Because  he  is  under  forty  years  old,  and  he 
is  worth  so  many  millions  of  dollars."  "So,"  said 
I,  "did  he  earn  it  by  honest  toil?"  "Oh,  no!" 
"Did  he  inherit  it?"  "Oh,  no!"  "Did  he  steal  it?" 
"Well,  no!"  "How  did  he  get  it?"  "He  made  it." 
Then  I  looked  at  Mr.  Schwab  with  interest.  He 
was  greater  than  the  United  States,  which  cannot 
make  a  dollar  of  money,  while  Mr.  Schwab  could 
make  it  by  the  million. 

It  is  this  doctrine  that  money  can  be  made  that  is 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          273 

the  source  of  our  present  distress.  The  old  doctrine 
that  money  must  be  earned,  inherited,  or  stolen  gives 
place  to  the  new  doctrine  that  money  can  be  made ; 
and  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  are  making 
it  as  easily  as  they  light  a  cigar,  and  are  passing  it 
out  to  the  people.  How  they  do  it  you  can  learn 
from  the  current  literature  of  the  day.  This  rating 
of  man  in  terms  of  money  is  the  mark  of  Anti- 
Christ,  for  a  man's  life  does  not  consist  in  the 
amount  of  money  he  has  made. 

Corrupt  commercialism  has  subsidized  the  press, 
centered  its  control  in  the  counting  room,  and  made 
its  most  highly  paid  functionary  the  advertising 
agent.  It  has  taken  possession  of  our  streets  and 
made  them  hideous  with  poles  and  wires.  It  has 
vulgarized  travel,  and  made  the  name  of  America 
a  byword  for  puerile  extravagance  on  the  continent 
of  Europe.  It  builds  churches  and  gladly  listens  to 
the  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  insists  on  the  or- 
thodoxy of  its  doctrine,  but  it  is  careful  to  keep  the 
minister  with  his  gospel  in  that  closed  compartment 
over  the  door  of  which  it  writes  the  mystic  word 
"sacred,"  and  in  which  it  does  not  permit  the  com- 
mon affairs  of  e very-day  life  to  be  so  much  as  men- 
REL.  &  POL.— 18 


274  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

tioned,  lest  they  should  disturb  the  holy  quiet  of  the 
place. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  there  are  high-minded 
men  in  the  commercial  class,  who  deplore  present 
conditions  as  sadly  as  the  sternest  moralist  in  the 
land.  But  what  can  they  do  ?  Such  a  merchant  was 
once  speaking  to  me  of  the  evil  effects  which  came 
from  the  employment  of  women  in  certain  depart- 
ments of  commercial  enterprise.  "Why  do  you  not 
stop  it  in  your  establishment?"  said  I.  "Blank, 
Blank,  &  Company  cannot  regulate  the  commercial 
life  of  the  United  States,"  was  the  answer.  And 
that  is  the  substance  of  the  whole  matter.  You  and 
I,  together  with  Blank,  Blank,  &  Company  are  in  the 
power  of  a  state-church  whose  god  is  gain,  whose 
heaven  is  commercial  success,  whose  hell  is  com- 
mercial failure.  This  commercial  state-church  is 
the  keeper  of  the  keys  of  its  heaven  and  hell.  It 
can  admit  to  the  heavenly  light  of  commercial  pros- 
perity, or  it  can  shut  out  into  the  darkness  of  com- 
mercial adversity.  In  matters  of  religion  it  is  lordly 
tolerant.  You  can  believe  anyone  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  creeds  of  Christendom  that  you 
please.  You  can  belong  to  this  or  that  political 
party;  but  there  is  one  thing  you  must  do  or  die. 


THE  COMMERCIALIZED  CHURCH.          275 

You  must  go  to  the  plain  of  Dura  and  at  the  sound 
of  the  cornet,  flute,  harp,  sackbut,  psaltery,  dulci- 
mer, and  all  kinds  of  music,  you  must  fall  down 
and  worship  the  golden  image  which  this  modern 
Nebuchadnezzar  has  set  up.  And  the  question  now 
confronting  the  American  people,  and  especially 
the  people  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians, is,  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  Dare 
you,  like  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abed-nego,  trust 
your  God  and  brave  the  fire,  or  are  you  ready  at 
the  very  first  note  of  the  cornet  to  fall  down  and 
worship  the  golden  image  which  Nebuchadnezzar 
has  set  up  ? 


Present  State    of   the    Churches. 

In  his  address  before  the  Ministerial  Association, 
the  mayor  of  Rochester  said,  in  effect,  that  the  gen- 
tlemen before  him  could  have  any  kind  of  a  city 
government  that  they  really  desired.  This  state- 
ment, I  take  it,  was  based  upon  the  fact  that  the 
ministerial  association  represented  the  moral  senti- 
ment of  the  community,  and  that  in  the  long  run  it 
is  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  community  that  cre- 
ates and  continues  civic  institutions.  Our  munici- 
pal, state  and  national  governments  can  never  go 
far  below,  nor  rise  far  above,  the  average  moral 
status  of  the  people.  Legislatures  can  make  laws, 
but  the  legislatures  cannot  enforce  them.  If  the  law 
does  not  express  the  moral  judgment  of  the  people, 
it  becomes  a  dead  letter.  If,  then,  the  ministers 
of  the  churches  are  the  moral  force  of  the  com- 
munity; if  they  are  the  accredited  teachers  of  the 
national  morality;  if  the  people  look  to  them  for 
guidance, — then  it  follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
whatever  government  the  ministers  want  the  min- 
isters can  have.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  there 
[276] 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      277 

is  one  class  more  than  another  which  is  shut  out 
from  civic  influence  and  political  activity,  that  class 
is  the  ministerial.  It  is  not  considered  becoming 
for  a  minister  so  much  as  to  express  an  opinion  on 
any  subject  of  current  politics.  He  is  a  minister 
of  religion,  and  in  the  popular  estimation  religion 
and  politics  have  nothing  to  do  with  each  other. 
Not  only  is  the  minister  thus  excluded  from  all 
direct  participation  (except  that  he  may  cast  his 
secret  ballot)  in  the  political  life  of  the  community 
in  which  he  lives,  but  he  is  not  expected,  nor  even 
permitted,  to  have  anything  to  say  in  regard  to  the 
great  industrial  and  economic  questions  that  en- 
gage the  attention  of  the  people.  In  the  conflict  be- 
tween capital  and  labor  neither  the  capitalist  nor 
the  laborer  has  any  use  for  the  minister.  In  1901 
the  General  Convention  of  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church  appointed  a  standing  commission  on 
capital  and  labor,  having  among  other  duties  that 
of  "being  in  readiness  to  act  as  arbitrators,  should 
their  services  be  desired,  between  men  and  their 
employers,  with  a  view  to  bring  about  mutual  con- 
ciliation and  harmony  in  the  spirit  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace."  This  commission  reporting  in  1904  says : 
"Taking  the  definitions  of  our  duty  in  reverse 


278  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

order,  we  have  to  say  regarding  arbitration  that  no 
request  for  our  services  has  been  received."  Dur- 
ing the  three  years  from  1901  to  1904  the  indus- 
trial world  was  the  scene  of  strikes  and  lockouts, 
which  disturbed  the  peace  of  the  country  and  caused 
the  waste  of  millions  of  money;  but  in  no  case  did 
the  contending  parties  turn  to  this  commission  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  or  any  other 
church  commission  for  a  solution  of  their  diffi- 
culties. If  a  clergyman  like  the  distinguished 
Catholic  Bishop  of  Peoria  was  placed  upon  the 
arbitration  commission  it  was  not  because  he  was 
a  clergyman,  but  because  he  had  as  a  man  inter- 
ested himself  in  and  informed  himself  con- 
cerning the  great  issues  involved.  For  the 
churches  and  the  ministers  as  such  there  is 
no  part  cast  in  the  great  drama  of  social  evolu- 
tion which  now  occupies  the  stage  of  the  world. 
There  is  one  field  of  human  effort  which  fifty  or 
sixty  years  ago  the  clergyman  claimed  as  his  own. 
The  education  of  the  youth  of  the  country  was  then 
almost  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  the  ministers 
of  religion.  The  presidents  of  our  larger  colleges 
and  universities  and  likewise  of  our  smaller  col- 
leges, and  the  head  masters  of  our  academic 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      279 

schools,  were  of  necessity  and  as  a  matter  of  course 
ordained  ministers  of  some  one  of  our  religious  de- 
nominations. The  teaching  profession  was  largely 
ministerial  in  its  makeup.  So  that  one  might  al- 
most take  it  for  granted  that  a  professor  in  a  col- 
lege was  also  a  clergyman.  But  during  the  last 
fifty  years  the  province  of  education  has  passed 
from  under  the  power  of  the  clerical  body  into  the 
possession  of  the  laymen.  The  presidents  of  all 
our  larger  universities  and  colleges  are  laymen, 
and  if  some  of  our  smaller  colleges  are  still  re- 
quired by  their  charters  to  have  a  clergyman  as 
their  head,  then  such  clergyman  is  careful  not  to 
emphasize  his  clerical  character;  in  dress,  in  man- 
ner, in  thought,  he  is  in  accord  with  the  lay,  rather 
than  with  the  ministerial,  world.  Our  academic 
schools,  following  the  lead  of  our  universities  and 
colleges,  are  seeking  their  teaching  staff  among 
laymen,  and  if  by  chance  they  do  employ  a  clergy- 
man they  take  care  that  he  is  not  clergyman  enough 
to  hurt  him.  And  as  for  the  great  public  school 
system  which  the  people  have  created  for  the  edu- 
cation of  their  children,  that,  as  we  too  well  know,  is 
not  only  free  from,  but  antagonistic  to,  clerical  in- 
fluence. There  is  nothing  that  the  people  resent 


28o  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

more  quickly  than  the  interference  on  the  part  of 
any  church  or  denomination  with  the  common 
schools  of  the  country. 

As  the  clergyman  looks  out  on  the  world  to-day 
he  is  apt  to  cry :  "Where  do  I  come  in  ?"  He  finds 
himself  debarred  from  any  real  and  active  partici- 
pation in  the  political,  industrial,  educational,  or 
social  life  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  And  in 
this  enforced  isolation  his  manhood  withers  and  his 
interest  in  life  dies  out. 

Now,  if  we  seek  for  the  reason  of  this  waning  of 
ministerial  influence  we  find  it  in  that  divorce  of 
what  is  called  religion  from  life  which  is  the  char- 
acteristic of  the  modern  world.  Religion  has  no 
place  in  our  politics,  no  place  in  our  business,  no 
place  in  our  education,  no  place  in  our  society. 
Its  province,  if  it  have  any,  lies  outside  our  every- 
day life  and  far  beyond  our  everyday  thought.  We 
hear  on  every  side  of  the  evil  of  divorce,  the  break- 
ing of  the  bond  of  union  between  husband  and  wife, 
but  what  divorce  is  more  desolating  than  the  di- 
vorce of  life  from  religion;  these  are  not  simply 
husband  and  wife,  one  of  which  can  die  and  the 
other  live,  but  they  are  body  and  soul,  neither  of 
which  can  really  exist  without  the  other.  If  it 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      281 

were  the  fact  that  life  and  religion  were  parted 
asunder  never  to  come  together  again,  then  life 
would  be  worthless  and  would  soon  end  in  despair, 
and  go  down  into  the  gloom  of  death. 

But  the  truth  is  that  religion  is  entering  into  life 
and  spiritualizing  every  department  thereof  as  it  has 
not  since  the  primitive  days.  It  is  not  dying  out ;  it 
is  only  changing  its  mode  of  operation.  It  refuses 
any  longer  to  be  shut  up  in  churches,  and  is  striv- 
ing to  make  itself  a  home  in  the  street,  in  the  shop, 
in  the  market,  in  the  common  council  chamber. 

The  clerical  order  is  losing  influence,  not  because 
the  world  is  growing  less  religious,  but  because  it 
is  more  religious  that  it  was  sixty  years  ago.  Re- 
ligion has  to-day  a  wider  scope  and  a  farther  reach 
than  the  clerical  interpretation  permits  it  to  have. 

The  churches  and  denominations,  which  now 
claim  to  represent  the  religious  interests  of  man- 
kind, are  the  rear-guard  of  the  powers  that  make 
for  religious  progress.  They  are  the  product  of 
spent  forces.  The  Catholic  church  is  the  survival  in 
the  modern  world  of  the  imperialistic  system  that 
from  the  fourth  to  the  fourteenth  centuries  was  the 
system  common  to  both  church  and  state;  in  which 
all  men  were  in  theory  subjects  of  the  Emperor  and 


282  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  Emperor  the  subject  of  the  Pope.  In  this  sys- 
tem the  people  are  in  bondage  to  the  clergy,  who 
claim  to  stand  between  them  and  God,  and  from 
whose  lips  the  people  must  receive  knowledge. 
The  Pope,  shut  up  in  the  Vatican,  is  a  sign  to  the 
world  of  the  status  of  the  Catholic  church.  It  is 
permitted  to  exist  only  so  long  as  it  secludes  itself 
from  the  activities  of  e very-day  life.  It  is  imperial- 
istic in  its  government,  and  unscientific  in  its 
teaching,  and  it  has  no  place  in  a  democratic  and 
scientific  age.  The  great  national  churches  of 
north  Europe  and  England  are  the  creation  of  the 
spirit  of  monarchy  and  of  privilege;  they  are  the 
handiwork  of  the  Kings,  the  nobles,  and  the  gentry 
and  mark  the  triumph  of  the  King,  the  nobles,  and 
the  gentry  over  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor.  These 
churches  are  aristocratic  in  government  and  unsci- 
entific in  doctrine,  and  have  no  place  in  a  democratic 
and  scientific  age.  The  great  denominations,  such  as 
the  Methodist  and  the  Baptist,  are  composed  mainly 
of  the  middle  class.  They  represent  the  revolt  of 
the  tradesman  against  the  domination  of  the 
gentry.  These  denominations  are  occupied  with 
minor  morals,  are  unscientific  in  their  doctrine,  and 
are  out  of  touch  with  the  workmen  and  the  poor, 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      283 

who  in  our  day  are  slowly  and  painfully  emerging 
from  their  servile  state,  and  are  claiming  a  name 
and  a  place  for  themselves  in  the  regulation  of  the 
affairs  of  the  world. 

The  great  salient  fact  in  the  present  life  of  the 
western  world  is  the  democratic  revolution.  This 
revolution  has  been  in  progress  for  six  hundred 
years,  and  has  proceeded  by  regular  stages.  In 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  it  delivered 
the  Kings  from  the  domination  of  the  church  and 
the  Empire ;  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centu- 
ries it  made  the  Kings  subordinate  to  the  nobility  and 
the  gentry;  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies the  middle  class  became  dominant,  the  manu- 
facturer and  the  shopkeeper  drove  the  nobility  and 
gentry  from  power,  and  now  this  class  is  struggling 
for  supremacy  with  the  common  people,  with  the 
hand  worker  and  the  wage  earner,  in  whose  su- 
premacy the  democratic  revolution  will  reach  its 
goal.  It  is  with  this  phase  of  the  revolution  that 
the  world  is  now  occupied,  and  in  this  crisis  the 
organized  churches  are  not,  for  the  most  part  with 
the  rising  people,  but  are  either  indifferent  or  are 
with  the  dominant  class.  The  churches  stand  for 
privilege;  the  bishops  in  the  Episcopal  churches 


284  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

are  a  privileged  class  among  the  clergy;  the  clergy 
are  a  privileged  class  among  the  people;  the 
wealthy  are  a  privileged  class  in  society.  But  privi- 
lege of  any  and  every  kind  is  becoming  every  day 
more  and  more  odious.  Equality,  political,  social, 
and  intellectual,  is  a  constantly  growing  demand, 
and  all  institutions  that  stand  simply  upon  privilege 
are  passing  away.  The  democratic  revolution  is 
the  working  out  into  the  life  of  the  world  of  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  The  only  privilege 
which  He  claimed  for  himself,  or  allowed  to  others 
was  the  privilege  of  service  and  sacrifice,  and  that 
is  the  only  privilege  that  can  endure  in  the  day  of 
the  social  revolution  that  is  at  hand. 

But  if  the  churches  are  wanting  in  the  democratic 
spirit  which  is  necessary  to  any  wide  influence  in 
the  present  revolutionary  era,  they  are  still  more 
wanting  in  the  scientific  spirit,  without  which  it  is 
impossible  for  any  institution,  no  matter  how  vener- 
able, to  have  any  intellectual  standing  in  the  mod- 
ern world.  The  universe  of  thought  in  which  we 
live  is  the  product  of  the  scientific  movement,  and 
the  work  of  the  scientific  movement  has  been  to 
substitute  law  for  miracle  as  the  basis  of  all  the 
operations  of  nature.  In  the  primitive  ages  man 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      285 

was  under  the  dominion  of  his  fears  and  of  his 
imagination,  and  the  world  of  thought  in  which  he 
lived  was  necessarily  imaginary.  His  thought 
world  was  not  the  product  of  his  reason ;  it  was  the 
creation  of  his  fancy.  He  viewed  the  universe 
about  him,  not  in  the  clear  light  of  dispassionate 
intelligence,  but  in  the  refracted  light  of  his  hopes 
and  his  fears.  For  him  nature  was  without  unity 
and  without  continuity.  His  terrified  soul  filled  the 
earth  and  the  air  with  beings,  like  himself,  only 
more  powerful,  who  used  the  forces  of  nature  for 
the  purpose  of  expressing  their  pleasure  or  displea- 
sure. All  ancient  religion  was  based  upon  the 
miracle;  upon  the  belief  that  there  are  beings,  like 
men,  only  greater,  who  can  use  the  forces  of  nature 
to  attract  attention  and  to  express  their  love  or  their 
hatred.  In  all  history  the  gods  are  simply  deified 
men,  who,  instead  of  smiting  with  the  arrow  or 
striking  with  the  sword,  smite  with  the  pestilence 
or  strike  with  the  lightning. 

The  theory  of  the  miracle  looks  upon  every  event 
in  nature  as  having  reference  to  the  well-  or  ill-being 
of  some  particular  man  or  men.  When  religion  is 
based  upon  miracle  then  a  flood  of  water,  or  a  vol- 
canic eruption,  is  looked  upon  as  a  direct  visitation 


286  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

of  the  wrath  of  God.  The  religion  of  miracle  which 
the  primitive  imagination  created  held  full  posses- 
sion of  the  world  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  sci- 
entific era;  which  era  may  be  roughly  dated  from 
the  publication  by  Copernicus  of  De  Orbium  Coeles- 
tium  Revolutionibus  in  1530,  which  affirmed  the  fact 
of  the  revolution  of  the  earth  upon  its  axis  and  its 
annual  journey  around  the  sun.  From  that  day  to 
this  the  religion  of  the  reason  has  been  in  conflict 
with  the  religion  of  the  fancy,  and  truth  has  been 
contending  with  imagination.  Slowly,  but  surely, 
scientific  reason  has  reconstructed  the  universe.  It 
has  driven  the  vast  horde  of  ancient  gods  and  de- 
mons into  the  limbo  of  things  impossible.  It  has 
made  the  primitive  miracle  incredible,  because  the 
ancient  miracle  and  the  modern  conception  of  law 
cannot  coexist  in  the  same  mind.  Under  the  pressure 
of  the  scientific  conception  of  uniformity  and  contin- 
uity the  miracle  has  been  driven  from  one  strong- 
hold to  another  until  now  it  is  making  a  last  and 
desperate  stand  in  one  region  of  the  world  and  in 
one  period  of  time.  The  ordinary  Christian  does 
not  give  a  moment's  serious  consideration  to  the 
miracles  of  which  he  reads  in  the  history  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  or  which  he  finds  in  the  literature  of  the 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      287 

east.  He  does  not  go  into  any  long  course  of  rea- 
soning to  prove  or  disprove  these  stories;  he  sets 
them  down  at  once  as  the  myth,  the  legend,  the 
folk-lore,  of  the  Roman,  Greek,  and  Indian  peoples. 
The  Protestant  views  with  impatient  indignation 
the  miracles  of  the  Catholic  church  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  derides  the  miracles  which  the  same 
church  claims  to  perform  at  the  present  day.  The 
vast  mass  of  sensible  Christians  look  upon  the 
cures  effected  by  the  Christian  Scientist,  not  as 
miraculous,  but  as  being  partly  the  operation  of 
well-known  laws  of  psychological  therapeutics  and 
partly  mere  delusion.  But  in  spite  of  their  rejec- 
tion of  all  miracles  in  the  so-called  pagan  world,  in 
the  mediaeval  church,  and  in  modern  times,  the 
great  Protestant  national  churches  and  denomina- 
tions base  all  their  teaching  upon  the  miracle. 
They  claim  that  their  religion  is  the  one  exception 
in  the  religious  history  of  the  world.  All  other 
religions  are  the  product  of  historical  causes.  The 
ancient  religions  sprang  from  man's  imaginative 
interpretation  of  nature.  They  contained  elements 
of  eternal  truth,  but  in  their  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  gods  to  the  natural  world  everyone 
knows  that  they  were  in  error.  But,  when  we 


288  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

come  to  our  own  religion,  we  affirm  what  we  deny 
in  regard  to  the  religions  of  ancient  and  mediaeval 
times,  and  we  base  our  belief  in  our  miraculous 
religion  upon  our  possession  of  a  miraculous  book. 

Of  course,  a  belief  in  the  inerrancy  of  the  Bible 
is  no  longer  possible  to  an  educated  man,  or  for 
anyone  in  fact,  who  reads  his  Bible  with  reason- 
able intelligence  and  attention.  It  does  not  need 
profound  scholarship;  it  only  requires  ordinary 
common  sense,  to  see  that  the  Bible  is  not  the  mir- 
aculous book  which  orthodox  theology  claims  it 
to  be.  It  is  not  the  higher  critic;  it  is  the  ordinary 
modern  reader,  who  has  reverently  placed  his 
Bible  among  the  great  literatures  of  the  world, 
and  finds  that  both  he,  himself  and  his  Bible  have 
gained  immensely  by  the  operation.  He  can  read 
his  Bible  now  with  pleasure  and  profit,  since,  in 
reading,  he  does  not  have  to  outrage  his  intelli- 
gence. 

In  the  light  of  scientific  research,  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  no  longer  stands  apart  from  the 
common  destiny  of  man  in  life  and  death,  but  He 
is  in  all  things  physical  like  as  we  are,  born  as  we 
are  born,  dying  as  we  die,  and  both  in  life  and 
death  in  the  keeping  of  that  same  Divine  Power, 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      289 

that  heavenly  Fatherhood,  which  delivers  us  from 
the  womb  and  carries  us  down  to  the  grave.  When 
we  come  to  know  Jesus  in  His  historical  relations, 
we  see  that  miracle  is  not  a  help,  it  is  a  hindrance, 
to  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  His  person,  His 
character,  and  His  mission.*  We  are  not  alarmed, 
we  are  relieved  when  scientific  history  proves  to  us 
that  the  fact  of  His  miraculous  birth  was  unknown 
to  Himself,  unknown  to  his  mother,  and  unknown 
to  the  whole  Christian  community  of  the  first  gen- 
eration. 

Believing  this,  we  are  no  longer  compelled  to 
look  upon  the  scientific  movement  as  irreligious, 
but  are  able  to  see  in  it  a  greater  confirmation  of 
religion;  a  scientific  religion  based,  not  upon  the 
sporadic  miracle,  but  upon  the  eternal  law.  We 
are  no  longer  compelled  to  look  for  our  God  in 
some  obscure  event  of  the  past.  We  have  but  to 
lift  up  our  eyes  to  see  Him  in  the  outgoings  of  the 
evening  and  the  morning,  of  all  the  days  of  our 
pilgrimage. 

The  scientific  movement  has  within  the  last  fifty 
years  acquired  a  momentum  that  is  irresistible. 


*Encyclopedia  Biblica,  vol.  3,  p.  294;  Hasting's  Diet  of 
Bible,  vol.  in.  p.  286. 
REL.  &  POL.— 19 


ago  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

It  has  taken  possession  of  every  educational  insti- 
tution from  the  kindergarten  of  the  common  school 
to  the  post-graduate  course  of  the  great  universi- 
ties. The  theological  seminaries  are  the  only  edu- 
cational institutions  which  have  not  adopted  the 
scientific  method  of  investigation  and  reasoning. 
In  resisting  the  scientific  movement  the  churches 
are  resisting  the  inevitable.  For  twenty-five  hours 
in  every  week  our  children  are  taught  by  trained 
instructors  that  the  miracle  has  no  place  in  nature, 
and  then  for  twenty-five  minutes  in  every  week 
our  children  are  taught,  by  untrained  instructors, 
when  they  see  fit  to  come  to  our  Sunday  Schools, 
that  the  universe  is  based  upon  miracle.  For  one 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  hours  in  every  week  all 
our  thought  and  our  action  is  based  upon  the  con- 
viction that  the  miracle  has  no  place  in  nature.  We 
trust  ourselves  and  all  that  we  have  to  our  un- 
faltering belief  in  the  unchanging  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse,— this  for  one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  hours  ; 
and  then  for  one  hour  a  few  of  us,  when  it  is  con- 
venient, go  to  our  churches  and  pretend  to  believe 
that  the  universe  is  based  upon  miracle.  In  our 
lecture  rooms,  in  our  laboratories,  in  our  factories, 
in  our  counting  rooms,  we  utterly  discard  the  mode 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      291 

of  reasoning  which  we  use  in  our  churches.  The 
clergyman  himself  discards  his  pulpit  method  when 
he  comes  to  deal  with  the  practical  affairs  of  life 
or  with  the  miracles  of  the  Hindu,  the  Catholic,  or 
the  Christian  Scientist.  And  yet  with  this  fact  of 
the  complete  divorce  of  theological  thought  from 
living  thought  staring  us  in  the  face,  we  wonder 
why  the  people  do  not  come  to  the  churches,  and 
marvel  at  the  waning  of  ministerial  influence. 

The  scientific  movement  is  not  only  constructing 
the  thought  world  in  which  mankind  must  live  for 
ages  to  come,  but  it  is  also  profoundly  influencing 
the  political,  social,  and  industrial  life  of  the  world. 
Science  has  unified  the  world  to  an  extent  and  in 
a  way  that  the  old  religions  never  dreamed  of. 
The  God  of  science  is  not  the  God  of  the  Hebrew, 
nor  of  the  Christian.  He  is  the  God  of  the  whole 
earth,  and  not  only  of  the  earth,  but  of  the  infinite 
reach  of  the  heaven.  The  man  of  science  knows 
his  God  as  God  has  never  been  known  before.  He 
is  face  to  face  with  his  God  every  moment  of  his 
life.  He  has  learned  through  long  experience  to 
believe  in  that  God,  who  is  the  Father  of  Lights, 


292  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

with  whom  there  can  be  no  variation,  nor  shadow 
that  is  cast  by  turning. 

The  life  of  the  man  of  science  is  necessarily 
favorable  to  the  development  of  the  religious  char- 
acter. What  can  be  more  ennobling  than  an  intense 
love  of  truth  for  truth's  sake?  There  is  not  in  all 
religious  history  a  more  saintly  character  than  that 
of  Charles  Darwin.  His  patience,  his  self-restraint, 
his  quiet,  uncomplaining  endurance  of  pain  and 
calumny,  are  as  indicative  of  spiritual  power  and 
of  true  religious  character  as  are  the  mortifications 
of  St.  Bernard  or  the  ecstacies  of  St.  Teresa.  It 
cannot  be  by  accident  that  the  breath  of  scandal 
has  never  soiled  the  name  of  any  of  the  great 
leaders  of  science.  The  man  of  science  finds  his 
God  as  David,  Job,  and  Jesus  found  theirs.  For 
Him,  "the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and 
the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork;"  for  him 
are  unloosed  the  bands  of  Orion  and  the  sweet  influ- 
ences of  the  Pleiades.  He  sees  the  glory  of  God 
in  the  grass  of  the  field,  and  the  providence  of  God 
in  the  fall  of  the  sparrow.  There  may  be  elements 
of  religion  lacking  in  the  man  of  science,  but  in  his 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      293 

love  of  truth,  in  his  reverence  for  law,  in  his  respect 
for  fact,  in  his  hold  upon  reality,  the  man  of  science 
is  not  as  the  unenlightened  church  member  thinks, 
— an  unbeliever,  but  a  profound  believer.  He  has 
a  faith  in  his  convictions  which  is  beyond  the  faith 
of  the  mediaeval  saint.  Science  is  not  simply  a 
philosophy,  it  is  a  passionate  religion,  and  a  relig- 
ion that  is  unifying  the  world.  A  German  physi- 
cian discovers  the  X-ray,  and  in  six  months'  time 
the  X-ray  is  used  in  every  hospital  from  the  rising 
to  the  setting  of  the  sun  for  the  alleviation  of 
human  misery.  It  is  science  that  has  made  possible 
the  great  industrial  organizations  that  are  the  won- 
der and  the  terror  of  the  industrial  world.  A  trust 
magnate  told  me  that  the  telephone  was  the  cause 
of  the  trust.  Industrial  commercialism  is  wiser  in 
its  day  and  generation  than  the  churches  of  light. 
It  is  not  afraid  of  the  truth.  It  rewards  discovery 
with  its  greatest  prizes — while  in  the  churches  even 
to  this  day,  discovery  is  a  crime,  and  invention  is 
of  the  devil.  No  reason  for  the  loss  of  ministerial 
influence  is  so  potent  as  the  fact  that  the  churches 
stand  outside  this  great  movement  for  unity  which 
is  the  characteristic  movement  of  the  modern  world. 
Being  unscientific,  the  churches  cannot  account  for 


294  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

themselves,  nor  for  any  of  the  religious  phenomena 
of  the  world.  They  one  and  all  have  to  plead  the 
miracle  as  the  reason  of  their  own  existence  and  of 
the  present  state  of  the  world. 

The  forces  of  formal  Christianity  are  ineffective 
because  they  are  disorganized,  demoralized,  and 
divided.  Churches  and  denominations  nullify  the 
efforts  each  of  the  other.  Episcopal  bishops  do  all 
they  can  to  defeat  the  purposes  of  the  Catholic 
bishops.  The  Catholic  bishops  look  upon  the  Epis- 
copal bishops  as  both  schismatic  and  heretical  and 
as  enemies  of  Christ  and  the  church.  The  unedu- 
cated Protestant  looks  upon  the  great  Catholic 
church  as  the  work  of  the  devil,  and  the  unedu- 
cated Catholic  looks  upon  the  Protestant  as  the 
child  of  Satan.  The  educated  man,  both  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  is  becoming  ashamed  of  this  con- 
dition, and  the  laymen  are  leaving  the  quarrel  en- 
tirely in  the  hands  of  the  clergy.  As  for  the  out- 
side world,  it  looks  upon  this  dispute  with  amused 
vexation  and  with,  "A  plague  on  both  your  houses," 
goes  about  its  business.  While  the  churches  are 
without  unity,  they  must  be  without  influence.  The 
ministerial  body  cannot  be  the  servant  of  the 
people  as  long  as  it  is  the  servant  of  its  denomina- 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCHES.      295 

tional  formularies.  These  formularies  cannot  be 
all  true;  and  it  follows  that  in  some  respects  all 
these  formularies  are  false.  The  only  way  the 
formularies  can  be  tested  is  by  the  scientific  method, 
and  the  scientific  method  the  churches  resolutely 
refuse  to  use;  and,  therefore,  the  churches  are 
hopelessly  divided  and  helpless. 

We  ministers  seem  to  me  like  a  man  traveling  in 
the  night,  who  falls  over  a  precipice;  in  his  fall  he 
seizes  upon  some  uneven  surfaces  of  the  rock. 
With  one  hand  he  holds  on  to  the  miracle,  with  the 
other  he  holds  on  to  his  denominational  difference. 
All  night  long  he  sweats  blood  in  his  agony,  as  he 
feels  his  hands  loosening  upon  the  crumbling  stone, 
and  fears  that  at  any  moment  he  may  fall  into  the 
black  abyss  of  Atheism  that  yawns  beneath  him. 
But  if  he  would  only  let  go  he  would  find  himself 
on  the  solid  earth,  and  would  hear  a  voice  saying 
to  him:  "Hear,  O  man!  the  Lord  thy  God  is  one 
Lord;  and  to  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  all  thy  strength,  and  all  thy  mind,  and 
to  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,  is  more  than  the 
creeds  and  the  churches." 

As  long  as  we,  the  ministers,  are  desperately  hold- 
ing on  to  the  waning  miracle  and  to  the  crumbling 


296  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

denominational  difference  we  are  in  no  condition  to 
fight  for  eternal  truth  and  justice.  We  are  trying 
in  a  pitiful  way  to  get  back  into  real  life  through 
what  we  call  the  institutional  churches.  The 
apostle  serves  tables,  and  the  prophet  becomes  a 
teacher  in  gymnastics;  and  we  think  we  have  done 
a  great  thing  in  doing  for  the  people  what  they 
can  do  much  better  for  themselves.  Meanwhile 
the  message  of  the  Master  is  not  carried,  and  the 
Word  of  the  Lord  is  not  spoken. 

Hear,  now,  oh  ye  churches,  the  sum  of  the  whole 
matter:  There  are  three  great  spirits  at  work 
creating  the  world  that  is  and  that  is  to  be: 
The  spirit  of  scientific  investigation,  that  will  know 
nothing  but  the  truth;  the  spirit  of  democratic 
revolution,  which  will  trust  no  one  but  the  people; 
the  spirit  of  social  evolution,  which  will  call  no 
man  common  or  unclean.  If  the  churches  wish 
for  influence  in  the  world  that  is  and  is  to  be, 
they  must  master  these  spirits  and  make  them  their 
own.  The  churches  must  become  scientific,  demo- 
cratic, and  socialistic.  And,  if  they  do  so,  then  the 
churches  will  merge  into  the  church  and  the  church 
will  no  longer  be  separate  from  the  state,  nor  the 
state  from  the  church,  but  these  two  will  be  one 
flesh. 


The    American    Church-State. 

In  his  address  before  the  ministerial  association 
the  mayor  of  Rochester  urged  upon  his  hearers 
the  necessity  of  attending  the  primary  elections  if 
they  wished  to  have  any  real  influence  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  their  city.  He  pointed  out  the  fact  that 
these  primaries  are  the  source  of  political  power. 
At  these  primaries  delegates  are  chosen  to  the 
various  party  conventions,  which  conventions  de- 
clare public  policies  and  name  candidates  for  pub- 
lic office.  The  primary  is  the  headwater  of  our 
political  and  social  life,  and  upon  its  purity  depends 
the  health  of  the  community.  It  would  seem,  there- 
fore, the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  guard  the  primary 
from  all  contamination,  and  as  the  ministers  are, 
by  office,  the  guardians  of  the  moral  well-being  of 
the  state,  they  of  all  men  ought  to  watch  over  the 
primaries.  But  the  suggestion  that  the  ministers 
should  directly  influence  the  primaries,  as  the 
primaries  of  the  great  parties  are  now  conducted, 
is  a  suggestion  that  would  call  forth  a  sneer  and  a 
laugh.  The  minister  can  be  present  at  the  primary 
[297] 


298  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

only  by  the  complete  abdication,  not  simply  of  his 
ministerial  office,  but  also  of  his  religious  feelings 
and  of  his  moral  character.  He  would  seek  in  vain 
in  the  primary  for  any  evidence  of  religious  senti- 
ment or  moral  principle.  If  the  primary  were  held 
in  a  room,  that  room  would  reek  with  tobacco 
smoke,  and  the  men  in  that  place  would  not  hesi- 
tate to  desecrate  it  with  their  coarseness,  their  pro- 
fanity, and  their  obscenity.  A  closer  acquaintance 
would  reveal  the  fact  that  moral  considerations 
have  no  place  in  the  transactions  of  the  primary. 
No  fear  of  public  ill,  no  hope  of  public  good,  has 
lodgment  in  the  heart  of  any  man  in  that  meeting. 
Everyone  who  is  an  actor  in  that  scene  seems 
moved  by  some  low,  petty  desire.  The  managing 
mind  of  the  meeting  is  some  professional  politician 
whose  sole  purpose  is  to  keep  his  hold  on  the  party 
organization  for  personal  and  mercenary  reasons. 
The  names  of  the  men  on  the  ticket  presented  to 
the  minister  and  for  whom  he  is  expected  to  vote 
are,  for  the  most  part,  names  of  men  of  whom  he 
has  never  heard  before,  and  of  whose  standing  and 
character  he  is  wholly  ignorant.  And  then  there  is 
the  appalling  fact  that  in  the  primary  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  voters  can  be  influenced  by  the  most 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.          299 

paltry  motives.  A  dollar  or  less  in  money,  the 
promise  of  a  day's  work,  a  pat  on  the  back  by  the 
leader  of  the  ward,  a  glass  of  liquor,  is  all  that  is 
needed  to  secure  the  support  of  this  riff-raff  of  the 
saloon  that  is  gathered  into  this  meeting  to  deter- 
mine the  destinies  of  the  American  people. 

Beside  all  this,  the  primary  is  not  what  it  pre- 
tends to  be.  It  is  not  a  meeting  of  free  citizens  for 
the  purpose  of  selecting  men  who  shall  represent 
them  and  declare  their  will  in  the  formulation  of 
public  policies  and  the  nomination  of  public  offi- 
cers. The  men  in  the  meeting  are  not  acting  free- 
ly; they  are  obeying  the  behests  of  a  sinister  out- 
side influence  which  has  predetermined  their  action. 
A  moral  and  religious  man  has  the  same  grief  and 
pain  of  soul  in  a  modern  political  primary  that  he 
has  in  a  brothel ;  in  the  one,  as  in  the  other,  he  sees 
the  prostitution  of  the  highest  and  holiest  to  the 
most  degrading  and  basest  use.  In  his  estimation 
the  prostitution  of  the  functions  of  the  state  to 
private,  personal,  and  mercenary  ends  is  even  more 
appalling  and  disastrous  than  the  prostitution  of 
woman.  The  poison  of  the  one  may  be  kept  within 
bounds,  but  the  evil  virus  of  the  other  corrupts  the 
whole  body  politic.  Now  it  is  evident  that  a  min- 


300  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

ister  of  religion  cannot  be  present  as  a  participant 
in  the  doings  of  the  primary  any  more  than  he  can 
be  present  as  a  participant  in  the  doings  of  a  house 
of  shame.  His  very  presence  there  is  a  rebuke  or 
a  surrender.  If  he  dares  to  exercise  his  office  of  a 
prophet,  and  reprove  the  iniquity  of  the  primary, 
he  is  told  in  language  more  forcible  than  polite 
that  the  primary  is  not  a  prayer  meeting.  He  is 
made  to  understand  in  the  most  unmistakable  man- 
ner that  religion  is  not  politics,  nor  politics  re- 
ligion. 

In  the  great  majority  of  American  minds  this 
assertion  that  politics  is  not  religion  would  have 
the  force  of  a  self-evident  axiom ;  and  yet  the  whole 
history  of  the  world  proves  that  while  religion  is 
much  more  than  politics  yet  politics  is  religion. 
Woodrow  Wilson*  in  his  treatise  on  "The  State," 
speaking  of  the  government  of  the  ancient  Greek 
cities,  says:  "In  every  way  the  political  life  of  the 
city  spoke  of  religion.  There  was  a  city  hearth  in 
the  prytaneum  on  which  a  fire  sacred  to  the  city's 
gods  was  kept  ceaselessly  burning;  there  were  pub- 
lic repasts  at  which,  if  not  the  whole  people,  at 
least  representatives  sat  down  to  break  the  sacred 


*Woodrow  Wilson,  The  State,  p.  31. 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  yn 

cake  and  pour  out  the  consecrated  wine  to  the  gods ; 
the  council  feast  to  which  the  King  invited  the 
elders,  though  also  a  social  feast,  was  first  of  all  a 
sacred,  sacrificial  repast,  over  which  the  King  pre- 
sided by  virtue  of  his  priestly  office.  There  were 
festivals  at  certain  times  in  honor  of  the  several 
deities  of  the  city,  and  the  council  always  convened 
in  a  temple.  Politics  was  a  religion." 

And  what  is  true  of  ancient  Greece  is  true  of  all 
great  nations  and  all  pure  politics.  Gerritt  Smith, 
in  his  pamphlet  on  "The  one  test  of  character," 
has  expressed  this  thought  so  aptly  that  I  will  give 
it  in  his  words :  "We  are  told,  that  a  church  should 
not  meddle  with  politics.  There  is,  however, 
nothing  on  earth  that  should  give  it  more  concern. 
Politics,  rightly  interpreted,  are  the  care  of  all  for 
each, — the  protection  afforded  by  the  whole  people 
to  every  one  of  the  people;  and  hence  a  church 
might  better  omit  to  apply  the  principles  of  Christ 
to  everything  else  than  to  politics.  Manifestly,  I  am 
not  speaking  here  of  the  satanic  politics,  which 
have  ever  cursed  every  part  of  the  world,  but  of 
the  heaven-commanded  and  heaven-imbued  poli- 
tics, which  have  never  yet  extended  their  blessed 
sway  over  any  people." 


302  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

It  is  only  a  passing  phase  of  modern  thought 
that  has  attempted  to  separate  the  religious  and  po- 
litical interests  of  mankind.  In  the  great  permanent 
thought  of  the  world  politics  is  religion.  Politics 
was  religion  when  Moses  led  the  Children  of 
Israel  up  and  out  of  Egypt  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  Hebrew  state  in  the  ten  commandments. 
Politics  was  religion  when  Isaiah  poured  his  in- 
spired scorn  on  the  Egyptian  policy  of  the  Jewish 
politicians,  and  when  Jeremiah  sternly  condemned 
Jehoiakim  the  son  of  Josiah,  King  of  Judah,  to  the 
burial  of  an  ass.  Politics  was  religion  when  Jesus, 
the  Son  of  David,  based  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
the  beatitudes  and  the  five  negative  laws  of  right- 
eousness. Politics  was  a  religion  when  the  Greeks, 
inspired  by  Athena  and  led  by  Mars,  saved  Euro- 
pean civilization  on  the  field  of  Marathon.  Politics 
was  a  religion  throughout  the  whole  period  of 
republican  purity  in  Rome.  Every  Roman  believed 
that  Romulus  had  built  the  city  on  the  hill  that  the 
gods  had  chosen,  and  that  Numa,  their  law-giver, 
was  inspired  with  wisdom  by  a  divinity.  Politics 
was  religion  in  the  days  of  Charlemagne  when  he 
took  churchmen  into  his  council  and  made  Alcuin 
the  chief  adviser  of  the  state.  Politics  was  religion 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.          303 

when  Henry  of  Germany  sought  Bruno  of  Toul  to 
work  with  him  for  the  restoration  of  order  in 
Europe.  Politics  was  religion  when  Langton, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  at  a  meeting  of  the 
barons,  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  produced  the  char- 
ter of  Henry  I.  and  made  it  the  basis  of  the  Great 
Charter  of  English  liberties,  which  the  bishops  and 
barons  compelled  John  to  sign  at  Runnymede. 
Politics  was  religion  when  Cromwell  and  his  Iron- 
sides swept  the  armies  of  Charles  I.  from  the  field 
of  Marston  Moor,  and  destroyed  forever  the  doc- 
trine of  the  divine  right  of  Kings  to  rob  and  op- 
press the  people.  Politics  was  religion  when  the 
Pilgrims  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  in  the  pres- 
ence and  fear  of  God  constituted  themselves  a 
commonwealth,  and  made  themselves  the  seed  corn 
of  the  great  American  nation.  Politics  was  religion 
when  George  Washington  knelt  in  the  snows  of 
Valley  Forge  and  prayed  for  the  political  salvation 
of  his  people,  and  when  the  same  man  went  from 
St.  Paul's  church  in  New  York  city  to  his  inaug- 
uration as  first  President  of  the  United  States. 
Politics  was  religion  when  Abraham  Lincoln,  in 
his  second  inaugural,  gave  utterance  to  the  spirit 
of  religious  consecration  which  for  four  years  had 


304  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

kept  him  steadfast  to  a  sacred  duty,  and,  with 
malice  toward  none,  with  charity  toward  all,  laid 
his  life  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  his  country.  Poli- 
tics was  religion  when  Theodore  Roosevelt,  leaving 
the  limitations  of  his  office,  acting  as  the  high 
priest  of  American  morality  and  religion,  compelled 
the  labor  leaders  and  the  coal  operators  to  come 
before  him  and  settle  their  quarrel  that  was  bring- 
ing misery  upon  the  poor  and  anarchy  upon  the 
nation.  Politics  was  religion  in  the  city  of  Roch- 
ester when  ministers  left  their  churches  and  women 
the  sacred  retirement  of  their  homes  and  went  upon 
the  political  platform  to  plead  for  the  purity  and 
integrity  of  our  public  school  system,  and  to  secure 
to  our  children  an  education  based  upon  the  science 
of  pedagogy,  and  not  upon  the  necessities  of  the 
spoilsman.  Politics  is  religion  because  it  has  to  do 
with  major  morals,  with  the  relations  of  men  to 
each  other  in  communities,  with  honesty  in  trade, 
with  gentleness  in  action,  with  truth  in  speech. 
The  nation  exists  as  a  polity  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
tecting dishonesty,  for  suppressing  violence,  and 
for  discovering  truth  and  uncovering  falsehood. 
The  one  cry  that  goes  up  from  man  to  God  is  for 
justice.  All  the  prophets  from  Moses  to  Jesus  de- 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.          305 

clare  it  to  be  the  will  of  God  that  righteousness  be 
done  in  the  earth.  God  is  righteousness  and  in 
righteousness  is  His  Kingdom  established. 

And  the  nation,  the  state,  and  the  city  have  no 
other  function  than  to  translate  righteousness  into 
the  definite  forms  of  justice.  When  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  of  1787  sent  forth  the  Consti- 
tution which  it  devised  for  the  government  of  the 
nation  it  did  so  in  these  words :  "We,  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  per- 
fect union,  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tran- 
quility,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  promote 
the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of 
liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  children,  do  ordain  and 
establish  this  Constitution  for  the  United  States  of 
America." 

Now  can  any  man  write  a  more  perfect  descrip- 
tion of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  or  in  heaven 
than  is  to  be  found  in  these  words?  A  government 
resting  upon  such  principles  as  these  is  not  a  god- 
less policy;  it  is  a  holy  religion;  and  all  the  more 
so  because  the  religion  is  unconscious,  resting  in 

REL.  &  POL.— 20 


306  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  great  eternal  laws  of  justice  as  surely  and 
serenely  as  the  earth  rests  in  the  law  of  gravitation. 
When  the  people  of  the  United  States  decreed 
by  constitutional  amendment  that  the  government 
should  never  by  law  establish  any  religion,  they 
did  actually  establish  the  only  religion  that  could 
comprehend  in  its  membership  the  whole  American 
people.  A  religion  having  as  its  basis  the  prin- 
ciples of  individual  liberty  and  obedience  to  right- 
eous law  is  really  the  religion  of  the  golden  rule. 
Nor  has  this  religion  been  simply  a  theory  power- 
less to  work  righteousness  in  the  world.  It  has 
created  a  great  and  happy  people.  Never  before 
in  the  history  of  the  world  have  so  large  a  number 
of  human  beings  lived  together  under  one  govern- 
ment, so  little  restrained  by  governmental  control ; 
with  so  many  opportunities,  with  so  many  advan- 
tages, intellectual,  social,  and  physical,  as  are  now 
living  in  the  United  States  of  America.  This  pop- 
ulation has  come  from  every  region  of  the  earth 
and  from  races  most  alien  to  each  other,  and  yet, 
under  the  influences  of  the  religious  principles 
underlying  the  American  republic,  these  alien  ele- 
ments have  been  welded  into  one  compact  Ameri- 
can citizenship.  This  wonder  has  come  to  pass  in 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  307 

a  way  so  simple  that  it  has  escaped  observation. 
By  a  sublime  instinct  the  American  people  have 
created  the  organ  that  has  resolved  race  and  relig- 
ious differences  into  the  larger  life  of  a  common 
citizenship.  Gently,  but  firmly,  the  people  with- 
drew the  education  of  the  children  from  under  the 
hand  of  all  lesser  religions,  and  placed  it  in  the 
power  and  keeping  of  the  larger  religion  of  the 
state.*  The  common  school  is  the  great  resolvent. 
The  German,  the  Italian,  the  Pole,  the  Hun,  enter 
that  school  and  come  out  Americans.  In  my 
neighborhood  are  Italians  who  in  a  single  genera- 
tion have  become  ardent  Americans.  They  speak 
the  language  of  the  country  and  understand  the 
genius  of  its  laws.  Without  the  public  school  the 
United  States  would  be  an  undigested  mass  of  alien 
races.  By  means  of  the  public  school  we  are  a 
homogeneous  people.  We  are  told  that  the  public 
schools  have  no  religion.  But  if  religion  be  love, 
and  joy,  and  peace  in  the  holy  air  of  God,  then  the 
public  schools  have  done  more  to  promote  true  re- 
ligion than  all  the  churches  in  the  land.  What  the 


*The  religion  of  the  churches  has  to  do  with  the  salvation 
of  the  individual,  the  religion  of  the  state  with  the  salvation 
of  the  community ;  hence  it  is  the  greater. 


308  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

churches  and  denominations  are  doing  their  utmost 
to  prevent  the  common  schools  are  accomplishing. 
They  are  uniting  the  American  people  in  a  great 
common  religion, — a  religion  based  upon  the  scien- 
tific method  which  finds  God  in  the  present  truth: 
a  religion  which  is  democratic,  and  finds  the  high- 
est expression  of  law  in  the  common  judgment  of 
the  whole  people;  a  religion  which  is  socialistic  in 
that  it  is  controlled  by  the  social  organism, 
the  state,  and  knows  no  distinction  of  rank  or 
class,  and  looks  only  to  the  public  welfare.  As  I 
look  about  the  city  of  my  residence,  and  see  our 
beautiful  schoolhouses,  with  their  splendid  equip- 
ment, and  know  that,  so  far  as  this  city  is  con- 
cerned, this  mighty  molding  institution  is  guided 
and  governed  by  the  single  purpose  of  giving  to  the 
children  the  best  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral 
training  of  which  the  children  are  capable  and 
which  the  appliances  can  secure,  then,  like  John  in 
the  presence  of  Jesus,  I  say  these  must  increase, 
while  we  must  decrease. 

All  church  and  denominational  differences  are 
melting  away  under  the  warmth  generated  by  the 
public  school.  We  cannot  hold  our  young  in  our 
different  churches,  because  they  have  learned  in 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  309 

our  public  schools  that  our  differences  are  not  es- 
sential. They  see  no  moral  difference  between  the 
Methodist  and  the  Baptist,  between  the  Episco- 
palian and  the  Presbyterian,  between  the  Catholic 
and  the  Protestant,  between  the  Jew  and  the  Christ- 
ian. They  see  that  the  common  humanity  is  greater 
than  the  denominational  difference.  And  we  have 
all  come  to  believe  with  our  children.  In  our  busi- 
ness, in  our  social  intercourse,  in  our  intellectual 
life,  all  sectarian  differences  have  disappeared.  In 
life  we  have  made,  not  creed  but  character,  the 
test  of  our  approval.  It  is  only  on  Sunday  that  we 
go  to  our  churches  and  work  hard  to  keep  our  be- 
lief that  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  Presbyterian  or  a 
Baptist,  a  Methodist  or  an  Episcopalian,  a  Catho- 
lic or  a  Protestant,  a  Jew  or  a  Christian,  in  order 
to  be  acceptable  to  God.  But  the  children  are 
learning  better  than  all  this.  They  are  reading  the 
story  of  man  as  it  is  found  in  the  myth,  the  legend, 
the  folk-lore  and  the  chronicles  of  all  peoples,  and 
comparing  this  story  with  that  of  the  Hebrew 
people,  they  see  at  once  that  the  history  of  this 
people  is  not  exceptional.  That  it  has  its  elements 
of  myth  and  legend  and  folk-lore  as  well  as  the 
Greek  and  the  Hindu.  So  our  children  are  begin- 


310  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

ning  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  God,  whose  revela- 
tion has  come,  not  to  one,  but  to  all,  nations, — a 
God  who  revealed  Himself  to  our  Aryan  fore- 
fathers by  the  name  of  Varuna  in  the  stars;  who 
inspired  the  Greek  with  the  worship  of  Athena  in 
the  air;  who  made  Himself  known  to  Moses  as 
Jehovah  in  the  burning  bush ;  and  by  the  mouth  of 
the  prophet  cried:  This  is  the  name  whereby  He 
shall  be  called,  "The  Lord  our  Righteousness."  By 
the  study  of  comparative  religion  our  children  are 
learning  that  God  manifested  Himself  to  the  Aryan 
races  as  Light  and  Power,  to  the  Semetic  races  as 
Justice,  Mercy,  and  Truth.  And  in  the  last  age 
He  focused  these  two  great  religions  in  the  person 
of  Jesus,  the  Christ,  who  is  to  us  Righteousness 
and  Peace  and  the  Light  that  lighteneth  every  man 
that  cometh  into  the  world. 

This  great  church-state  of  America  has  driven 
out  the  age-long  hatred  of  the  Christian  toward 
the  Jew.  In  this  church-state  the  Jew  finds  every 
disability  removed.  He  is  honored  or  dishonored  just 
as  he  does  or  does  not  do  justice,  love  mercy,  and 
walk  humbly  with  his  God.  It  is  only  a  few  Sun- 
days ago  that  an  honored  Jewish  Rabbi  spoke 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  3" 

with  acceptance  from  a  Presybterian  pulpit.  And 
yet  we  cannot  read  the  signs  of  the  times. 

It  is  because  the  interests  committed  to  the  state 
are  so  vast  that  the  primary,  which  is  the  source 
of  political  power,  is  so  vitally  important.  Our 
city  government  has  not  only  the  education  of  our 
young,  it  has  our  lives,  our  property,  our  health,  in 
its  keeping.  The  two  ministers  of  religion  who  are 
doing  the  most  for  the  common  salvation  to-day 
are  the  mayor  and  the  health  officer.  The 
mayor  is  devoting  himself  with  unselfish  ardor  to 
the  public  welfare.  The  health  officer,  who  has 
many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  mediaeval  saint, 
has  saved  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  children.  For- 
merly the  average  number  of  funerals  of  children 
dying  of  cholera  morbus  in  this  parish  in  the  month 
of  August  was  five.  In  the  last  few  years  we  have 
not  had  one, — thus  proving  that  scientific  religion 
is,  at  least,  the  physical  salvation  of  the  people. 

If  there  is  one  point  on  which  I  would  take  issue 
with  the  mayor  in  his  admirable  address  it  is  the 
importance  which  he  seemed  to  ascribe  to  party  or- 
ganizations. Parties  are  simply  voluntary  organ- 
izations of  the  people  for  the  purpose  of  securing 


3i2  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

the  adoption  of  certain  governmental  policies.  Par- 
ties have  no  legal  existence ;  the  breath  of  the  people 
creates  them,  and  the  breath  of  the  people  can  blow 
them  away.  The  mayor  seemed  to  think  that  there 
was  some  party  organization  that  could  stand  be- 
tween the  people  and  their  will.  No  such  party 
organization  exists  or  ever  did  exist.  Three  great 
parties  have  served  the  uses  of  the  American  people 
in  the  course  of  their  history.  The  Federalist 
party,  which  under  the  leadership  of  Madison  and 
Hamilton  brought  about  the  union  of  the  states 
under  the  Federal  Constitution;  the  Democratic 
party,  which  under  the  leadership  of  Jefferson  and 
Van  Buren  secured  the  safety  of  the  nation  by  plac- 
ing it  on  the  broad  foundation  of  manhood  suf- 
frage ;  the  Republican  party,  which  saved  the  Union 
from  destruction  and  delivered  the  country  from 
the  curse  of  slavery.  The  so-called  Whig  party 
under  the  leadership  of  Webster  continued  the  work 
of  the  Federalist  in  consolidating  the  Union,  and 
under  the  leadership  of  Clay  was  a  party  of  fac- 
tious opposition.  The  Federalist  party  passed 
quietly  away  when  its  work  was  done.  The  Demo- 
cratic party,  after  ruling  almost  uninterruptedly  for 
sixty  years,  came  under  the  malign  influence  of  the 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  313 

slave  power,  lost  the  confidence  of  the  people,  and 
went  down  to  defeat  in  1860,  from  which  defeat  it 
has  never  been  able  fully  to  recover.  The  Republi- 
can party  was  the  creation  of  that  religious  enthu- 
siasm which  looked  upon  slavery  as  an  abomin- 
ation in  the  sight  of  God.  It  was  the  moral  senti- 
ment of  the  country  that  gave  existence  to  the 
party  of  Lincoln,  and  the  people  have  not  yet  for- 
gotten the  years  of  stress  and  storm  through  which 
they  were  carried  by  this  political  organization. 
But  there  is  nothing  sacred  about  the  Republican 
or  any  other  party;  it  must  serve  the  people,  or  it 
must  perish.  There  is  more  than  a  strong  suspi- 
cion abroad  that  both  of  the  existing  political  par- 
ties are  under  the  malign  influence  of  a  corrupt 
commercialism.  It  is  the  belief  of  an  increasing 
number  that  our  laws  are  being  made,  not  in  the 
interest  of  the  whole  people,  but  in  the  interests  of 
a  special  class.  We  see  our  common  councils,  our 
state  legislatures,  even  our  national  Congress,  sacri- 
ficing the  common  welfare  to  individual  and  cor- 
porate greed.  This  corrupt  commercialism  is  mak- 
ing merchandise  of  our  office-holding  class,  bribing 
the  dishonest  and  brow-beating  the  honest.  Now  let 
this  suspicion  ripen  into  conviction,  and  the  party 


314  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

or  parties  responsible  for  this  condition  will  be 
swept  out  of  existence  by  a  more  everwhelming 
defeat  than  that  which  befel  the  Whig  party  in 
1852,  or  the  Democratic  party  in  1872.  Parties  are 
for  the  people,  and  not  the  people  for  parties. 

And  it  is  with  the  people  that  all  parties,  states, 
and  churches  have  at  last  to  reckon.  As  long  as 
these  organizations  in  any  way  serve  the  purposes 
of  the  people,  the  people  will  serve  the  organiza- 
tions, and  will  continue  them  in  being.  But  as  soon 
as  an  organization  ceases  to  respond  altogether  to 
the  demands  of  the  people  then  that  organization  is 
on  its  deathbed,  and  its  passing  away  is  only  a 
question  of  time.  Every  organization,  social,  politi- 
cal, and  religious,  carries  within  itself  the  princi- 
ples of  its  own  dissolution.  Organizations  are  to 
the  life  of  the  race  what  the  human  body  is  to  the 
life  of  man.  They  are  subject  to  disease,  old  age, 
decay,  and  death.  In  the  day  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  those  forms  of  civil  and  religious  life  in 
which  men  had  lived  for  ages  had  lost  their  power 
to  satisfy  the  souls  of  men,  and  the  people  of  west- 
ern Asia  and  of  Europe  forsook  the  temple  and  the 
synagogue,  abandoned  the  forum,  and  the  academy, 
and  created  the  Christian  church  and  the  Christian 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  315 

nations.  For  a  thousand  years  the  mediaeval  church 
was  the  teacher,  the  guide,  the  protector,  of  the 
people  of  Europe.  The  church  exercised  over  the 
nations  the  care  and  the  authority  of  a  parent,  but 
in  the  fourteenth  century  the  parent  had  grown  old 
and  decrepit,  while  the  children  had  come  to  man's 
estate.  The  church  could  no  longer  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  the  people,  in  consequence  of  which 
the  people  went  out  of  the  church  by  the  millions 
and  established  the  national  churches  as  a  tempo- 
rary refuge.  Not  finding  these  national  churches 
adequate  to  their  spiritual  needs,  multitudes  of  the 
people  seceded  from  them  and  created  the  great 
denominations. 

To-day  the  denominations,  as  well  as  the  national 
churches,  are  failing  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the 
new  age,  and  the  people  are  leaving  them  by  the 
millions,  and  are  seeking  new  forms  for  the  expres- 
sion of  their  spiritual  and  moral  life.  It  is  in  vain 
that  the  churches  and  denominations  plead  their  age 
in  justification  of  their  authority;  for  their  age  is 
the  one  thing  that  is  against  them.  It  is  because 
they  are  old  and  have  lost  their  power  of  adaptabil- 
ity that  they  are  losing  their  hold  upon  the  intel- 
ligence of  men.  The  churches  and  the  denomina- 


316  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

tions  are  living  to-day  upon  their  past  achieve- 
ments. Men  honor  them  and  reverence  them  more 
for  what  they  have  done  than  for  what  they  are 
doing.  The  Catholic  Church  sits  in  the  modern 
world  as  the  aged  grandparent  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion. As  such  we  owe  her  veneration,  but  not 
obedience.  Her  thoughts  and  wishes,  like  all  the 
thoughts  and  wishes  of  the  aged,  dwell  in  the  past. 
Her  pontiff  sits  in  the  Vatican,  and  dreams  of  the 
good  old  times,  when  all  men  were  subject  to  the 
church,  and  the  church  was  obedient  to  the  Pope. 
But,  sad  though  it  be,  the  good  old  times  will  never 
come  again.  The  authority  of  the  Catholic  church 
over  the  reason  and  conscience  of  mankind  is  gone 
forever. 

The  national  churches  and  the  denominations  are 
the  parents  of  the  existing  order ;  but  they,  too,  have 
reached  a  point  when  parental  authority  is  difficult 
of  exercise.  The  children  have  grown  up,  and 
have  a  will  and  a  mind  of  their  own.  What  is  oc- 
curing  in  the  religious  and  political  life  of  the  world 
to-day  is  that  which  occurs  in  every  household: 
The  boys  and  girls  become  men  and  women,  but 
the  father  and  the  mother  will  not  see  it;  and  the 
consequence  is  alienated  affections  and  broken 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.          31? 

hearts.  Happy  is  that  family  in  which  the  father 
and  the  mother  grow  young  with  the  children,  and 
receive  from  the  lips  of  the  children  the  wisdom  of 
youth.  What  is  true  of  the  family  is  true  of  the 
churches.  Happy  is  that  church  which  listens  to 
the  children  as  they  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  doc- 
tors, both  hearing  them  and  asking  them  questions. 
The  age-long  tragedy  of  the  world  is  this  misun- 
derstanding between  the  young  and  the  old.  Well 
said  the  prophet:  "Your  old  men  shall  dream 
dreams,  and  your  young  men  shall  see  visions."* 
Dreams  and  visions,  past  and  future,  old  and  young, 
— are  not  these  the  necessary  stages  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  life?  He  that  is  young  to-day  will  be  old 
to-morrow ;  he  that  is  old  to-day  was  young  yester- 
day. Let  the  youth  venerate  his  own  old  age  in  the 
old  age  of  his  father,  and  let  the  father  respect  his 
own  youth  in  the  youth  of  his  son,  and  then  shall 
the  dream  and  the  vision  be  one. 

Existing  political  parties  in  the  United  States, 
like  existing  religious  institutions,  are  smitten  with 
age.  Political  parties  are,  in  their  nature,  much 
shorter  lived  than  religious  organizations.  They  are 
created  by  the  people  for  a  definite  purpose.  When 

*Joel,  XI. :  2& 


318  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

that  purpose  is  accomplished  the  party  ceases  to  be. 
Because  of  what  it  has  done  a  party  may  live  long 
in  the  affections  of  the  people,  and  the  people  may 
use  it  for  general  purposes  even  after  its  special 
work  is  accomplished.  But  a  party  cannot  live 
forever  simply  upon  its  history.  It  must  do  the 
present  will  of  the  people  or  it  must  die.  The  peo- 
ple will  never  forget  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  it 
owes  to  the  old  Democratic  party  for  carrying  it 
through  the  great  bloodless  revolution  in  the  last 
century,  by  which  political  power  was  transferred 
from  the  few  to  the  many.  Speaking  of  this  revo- 
lution in  his  "History  of  Political  Parties  in  the 
State  of  New  York,"  Mr.  Hammond  says:  "I  am 
now  to  approach  a  period  in  the  political  history  of 
this  state  when  an  event  occurred  in  a  measure  un- 
precedented in  any  other  part  of  the  world,  but 
which,  highly  to  the  honor  of  this  country,  and 
fortunately  for  its  inhabitants,  is  not  unusual  in  the 
United  States.  The  event  to  which  I  allude  is  a 
change  by  the  will  of  a  majority  of  the  people, 
peaceably  and  constitutionally  expressed,  of  some  of 
the  important  and  fundamental  principles  of  the 
government.  I  say  important  and  fundamental 
principles,  because  the  sovereign  power  of  creating 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  319 

the  Executive  and  one  branch  of  the  Legislative 
Department  of  the  government  was  in  a  measure 
transferred  from  one  class  of  men  to  another,  and 
because  the  power  of  disposing  of  nearly  the  whole 
patronage  of  the  state  was  actually  changed,  and 
I  may  add,  that  one  branch  of  the  law-making  pow- 
er was  abolished,  and  the  functions  held  and  exer- 
cised by  that  department  transferred  to  an  individ- 
ual. In  past  ages  in  every  other  country  such  a 
change  could  only  have  been  effected  by  physical 
force ;  here  it  was  brought  about  by  moral  power."* 
It  had  been  well  for  the  Democratic  party  if  it 
had  gone  on  in  its  work  of  equalizing  the  political 
life  of  the  people,  and  had  given  political  rights  to 
the  laborer  in  the  south  as  it  gave  political  rights 
to  the  laborer  in  the  north.  By  drawing  an  arbi- 
trary line,  and  being  one  thing  in  the  south  and 
another  thing  in  the  north,  the  Democratic  party 
became  the  cause  of  its  own  destruction.  Its  al- 
liance with  the  slave  power,  being  in  flat  contradic- 
tion to  its  own  fundamental  principles,  caused  it 
to  lose  the  confidence  of  the  people  and  they  went 
out  of  it  by  the  hundred  thousand  to  form  the  Re- 


*Hammond,  History  of  Political  Parties  in  the  state  of 
New  York,  vol.  2,  chap.  i. 


320  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

publican  party,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  limit 
the  area  of  slavery,  and  put  in  the  way  of  grad- 
ual extinction.  The  Republican  party  was  called 
upon  to  do  more  than  it  promised.  It  carried  the 
nation  through  the  great  crisis  of  its  history,  and 
gave  to  it  freedom  and  unity.  For  the  work  that 
it  has  done  the  people  will  always  hold  it  in  reverent 
affection.  But  the  Civil  War  is  over,  and  new  is- 
sues are  upon  us.  Neither  the  Republican  nor  the 
Democratic  party  is  meeting  the  demands  of  the 
new  age.  Manhood  suffrage  for  the  white  and 
personal  liberty  for  the  colored  race  are  both 
achieved.  But  they  have  not  been  made  effective. 
Of  what  good  is  manhood  suffrage  if  its  only  use 
is  to  vote  one  set  of  office  holders  in  and  another  set 
of  office  holders  out;  of  what  use  is  personal  free- 
dom if  it  cannot  be  exercised  in  speech  and  action. 
Manhood  suffrage  should  be  used  for  the  enfran- 
chisement of  man  from  industrial  thralldom  and 
social  disadvantage.  Personal  freedom  should  be 
used  for  the  purpose  of  securing  and  maintaining 
personal  dignity  and  personal  power.  The  new  age 
is  upon  us;  the  age  of  industrial  freedom  and  so- 
cial equality;  the  age  that  is  to  deliver  man  at  last 
from  bondage  to  man.  In  old  time  the  princes  and 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.          321 

nobles  delivered  themselves  from  the  bondage  to 
the  King;  claimed  and  acquired  the  right  to  share 
with  him  in  the  government  of  the  state.  More 
recently  the  middle  class,  the  merchant  and  the 
lawyer,  freed  itself  from  dependence  on  the  prince 
and  the  noble,  and  became  dominant  in  the  politi- 
cal life  of  the  world.  And  now  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  who  do  the  world's  work  are  pressing 
forward  to  claim  an  effective  place  for  themselves 
in  the  social  and  political  economy  of  the  nations. 
They  are  asking  for  themselves  and  their  children 
a  share  in  those  privileges  which  hitherto  have 
been  the  privilege  of  the  few.  They  are  demanding 
decent  homes  to  be  born  and  to  die  in  and  sufficient 
leisure  for  thought  and  for  prayer.  The  miner  in 
the  darkness  of  the  mine  is  dreaming  of  light,  and 
the  girl  in  the  noise  and  ugliness  of  the  factory  is 
thinking  of  beauty  and  quiet.  The  people  are  mov- 
ing, and  the  old  organizations  must  move  with 
them  or  perish.  Serve  or  die  is  the  stern  decree 
of  fate.  If  the  churches  exist  largely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  supporting  the  clergy,  and  the  political  par- 
ties for  the  purpose  of  providing  places  for  the 
politicians,  then  both  churches  and  parties  are 
doomed. 

REL.  &  POL. — 21 


322  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

The  church-state  in  America,  which  includes 
all  parties  and  all  churches,  has  done  great 
things ;  but  greater  remain  to  be  done.  It  has  given 
political  power  to  the  people.  But  the  people  must 
now  use  that  power  to  secure  industrial  opportunity 
and  social  betterment.  We  have  learned  how  to  pro- 
duce, but  not  how  to  distribute.  We  have  vast, 
fabulous  wealth  at  one  end  of  the  social  scale,  and 
bare  subsistence  at  the  other.  The  forms  of  law 
are  used  to  divert  the  earnings  of  the  honest  and 
industrious  into  the  purse  of  the  dishonest  and  the 
idle.  Widows  and  orphans  are  beguiled  into  buy- 
ing undigested  securities  which  prove  to  be  undi- 
gestible,  and  which  rob  the  widow  and  the  father- 
less of  their  little  all.  To  correct  these  abuses, 
and  to  call  the  nation  back  to  its  high  and  holy 
calling  as  a  church-state  whose  duty  it  is  to  promote 
the  general  welfare,  to  secure  domestic  tranquil- 
lity, and  above  and  before  all  to  establish  justice, — 
is  the  task  to  which  the  American  people  must  set 
itself  without  delay. 

We  are  upon  the  threshold  of  a  movement  that 
shall  carry  mankind  to  a  higher  stage  of  being. 
No  one  is  satisfied  with  the  present  conditions.  The 
rich  are  ashamed,  and  the  poor  are  angered.  The 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.  323 

time  is  at  hand  for  preaching  the  gospel  to  the 
poor.  We  will  build  no  more  cathedrals  or 
churches,  if  we  can  help  it,  until  we  have  delivered 
the  poor  from  the  slum  and  the  sweat  shop.  We 
will  send  no  missionaries  to  the  heathen  to  preach 
a  Christ  whose  name  we  glorify,  but  whose  teach- 
ing we  despise.  We  will  not  ask  the  people  to  come 
to  our  churches  until  our  churches  are  purified  from 
a  corrupt  commercialism.  When  our  Christian  mer- 
chants close  their  stores  at  a  decent  hour  on  Sat- 
urday nights,  then  we  can  expect  to  have  hearty 
worship  on  Sunday  morning.  When  these  same 
merchants  pay  proper  wages  to  the  girls  and  the 
women  whom  they  employ,  so  that  these  same  girls 
and  women  are  in  no  danger  of  having  to  sell  their 
souls  to  keep  their  bodies  alive ;  when  we  have  hon- 
esty in  trade  and  open  dealing  in  corporations, — 
why  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  people  think  of 
coming  to  the  churches.  What  we  need  is  a  moral 
and  spiritual  reformation,  and  we  need  it  at  once. 
Our  church-state  is  in  danger.  The  abomination 
of  desolation  is  in  the  Holy  Place. 

How  shall  we  bring  this  reformation  about?  I 
hear  you  cry.  Why  in  the  simplest  way  in  the 
world :  Heed  the  words  of  the  mayor  of  Rochester, 


324  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

and  go  to  the  primary.  Go  first  to  the  primary  of 
your  own  heart,  and  see  that  no  malign  and  sinis- 
ter influence  rules  your  will.  See  to  it  that  you  sub- 
ject your  own  petty  desires  to  the  general  good. 
Dare  to  speak  the  truth  though  so  to  speak  cost 
you  friends  and  place  and  power.  If  the  primary 
of  your  heart  be  clean,  then  can  you  think  of  cleans- 
ing the  city,  the  state,  and  the  nation.  Go  to  the 
primary  of  your  home  and  bring  up  your  children 
in  the  belief  that  man  is  more  than  money,  and  that 
property  rights  are  always  to  be  subject  to  per- 
sonal rights.  Then  go  to  the  primary  of  your  ward, 
insist  that  the  meeting  shall  be  open  and  free,  meet, 
not  in  a  saloon  or  a  barber  shop,  but  in  the  assem- 
bly room  of  your  schoolhouses ;  speak  for  decency 
and  order  and  open  discussion;  demand  of  your 
alderman  the  same  unblemished  personal  character 
that  you  would  demand  of  your  minister;  let  the 
man  whom  you  send  to  a  convention  represent  you, 
and  not  some  outside  sinister  influence;  make  your 
primaries  political  schools  for  the  discussion  of  na- 
tional and  state  policies.  If  the  old  parties  are  cor- 
rupt then  form  a  new  party  that  will  do  the  will 
of  the  people.  Have  large,  wide,  uplifting  views 
for  yourself,  for  your  city,  for  your  state  and  your 


THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH-STATE.          325 

nation, — views  befitting  the  high  and  holy  religion 
of  justice  and  mercy  and  truth. 

And  as  for  you,  O  ye  unprivileged  classes,  who 
have  been  put  off  with  words  about  trinities  and 
unities,  about  incarnations  and  personalities,  the 
worn-out  terminology  of  the  Greek  dialectic,  and 
have  been  told  that  to  say  these  things  is  true  re- 
ligion,— know  this  that  pure  religion  and  undefiled 
before  God  and  the  Father  is  this:  "To  visit  the 
fatherless  and  the  widow  in  their  affliction,  and  to 
keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world." 

Know  this,  also,  that  some  of  us  are  not  going  to 
think  so  much  of  the  heaven  which  lies  before  us 
as  of  the  heaven  we  can  leave  behind  us.  After  we 
are  gone  millions  and  millions  will  be  born  into  our 
great  church-state  of  America  and  we  cannot  bear 
to  think  that  they  will  be  born  into  a  land  of  de- 
praved ideals,  of  religious  dissonance,  and  social 
discontent.  Before  we  close  our  eyes  in  death  we 
would  like  to  see  the  promise  of  a  better  day,  when 
men  shall  no  longer  make  gain  their  god;  when 
they  shall  no  longer  say  one  thing  in  the  church  and 
do  another  in  the  world;  when  they  shall  cease  to 
quarrel  about  God,  and  try  to  obey  Him ;  when 
the  rich  man  shall  not  glory  in  his  riches,  nor  the 


326  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

strong  man  in  his  strength;  when  this  earth  shall 
be  the  home  of  a  virtuous,  happy,  contented  race 
of  men  and  women ;  when  all  nations  will  be  united 
in  the  religion  of  justice,  mercy  and  truth,  and  have 
it  as  their  mission  to  form  a  more  perfect  union,  to 
establish  justice,  to  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  to 
promote  the  general  welfare,  and  to  secure  the  bless- 
ing of  liberty  to  themselves  and  their  children. 


I 


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